BS S37 
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LfBHAHY OF CONGHKSS. 1 

I 



(!l!)ap. ;t^.l3Sto37 I 



No. 







UNITED STATES OK AMK KICA. | 



THE 



CHRONOLOGY 

OF 

ISRAEL AND THE JEWS 



FROM THE EXODUS 

TO TH E 

DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE ROMANS. 



WITH REMARKS ON THE SYSTEMS OF FORMER CHRONOGRAPHERS. 



BY WILLIAM CUNINGHAME, ESQ. 

OF LAINSHAW, IN THE COUNTY OF AYR. 



I GLASGOW: 

JOHN SMITH & SON; 

LONDON, JAMES NISBET, HATCHARD & SON, SEELY & SON; 
EDINBURGH, WAUGH & INNES, LINDSAY & CO.; DUBLIN, TIMMS. 



MDCCCXXXV. 



■^6 



GLASGOW : 
FULLARTON AND CO., PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD. 



PREFACE. 



It appears evident from an examination of the Scriptures 
of the Old Testament, that it was originally the purpose of 
God, that his Church should be furnished with a Chronology 
of the World from its Creation, for the purpose of guiding 
her to such a knowledge of the times and the seasons as 
might at once throw light upon his past dispensations, and 
prepare her for the coming of Messiah, which was to take 
place at that fulness of time, ordained by the 

Father in his infinite wisdom. To a knowledge derived from 
Patriarchal tradition of what that appointed fulness was, in 
addition to the Prophecies of Daniel, we may probably trace 
the general belief which prevailed in the Jewish Church, that 
the advent of Messiah was to take place about the middle of 
the sixth Millenary, or the year of the world 5500, and the 
consequent expectation of his coming, which pervaded the 
whole eastern world in the age that He actually appeared. 

That such a belief did exist, is a fact stated by different 
ancient writers. Thus Ephraim Syrus, who died in the year 
378, says, " The Jews have abstracted 600 years from the 
" ages of Adam, Seth, &c., that they may conceal the Mes- 
" siah, lest their own books should convince them of the com- 
" ing of Christ, who was to appear after 5500 to deliver man."f 

* Gal. iv. 4. 

t See the place cited by Dr Keniiicott in his Dissertatio Generalis, p. 
37, fiom_a MS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 



iv 



PREFACE. 



The same belief, as I learn from Mr CiiUimore, liad been 
previously mentioned by Julius Africanus. Theophilus, 
Bishop of Antioch, who died in the year 181, fixes also, in 
conformity to this tradition, the birth of Christ in the year of 
the vy^orld 5507.* Syncellus, as I learn from Kennicott,f 
places it in the year 5500, in which date he is followed by 
Eutychius of Alexandria. The Abyssinian Chronicle of Ox- 
um, according to Bruce, agrees with these writers. J 

The opinion now prevalent among the Jews, as I learn from 
a Hebrew Tract referred to in p. 69 of this work, of the ap- 
proaching advent of the Messiah at the end of 112 Jubilees 
from the Creation, which period they suppose will elapse in a. d. 
1840, answering to the year of the w^orld, in their curtailed 
Chronology, 5600, § may probably also be traced to the same 
source of primitive tradition, that the Messiah was to appear 
about the year of the world 5500. It is true that, by calcu- 
lating the Jubilee at 50 years, contrary to the truth of the 
Scriptures, they make out now a period of 5600 years : but 
if we assume the Jubilee at 49 years, which is proved in 
these pages to have been the computation of the Synagogue, 
as it is certainly that of the Scriptures, then 112 Jubilees are 
exactly 5488 years. 

Next, let it be observed, that according to the Prediluvian 
and Postdiluvian Chronology of the Seventy, and the scheme 
established in this work, from the Exodus to the destruction 
of the first Temple, the length of the whole period from the 
creation to the Christian era is as follows : 

To the Deluge, . . . . 2262 years. 

Thence to the birth of Abraham, . . 1072 

Thence to the Exodus, . . . 505 

Thence to the Christian era, . . . 1639 

5478 

This sum, it will be seen, is just 10 years short of the pe- 

* Kennicott ubi supra. f Ibid. p. 48. % Hales, vol. i. p. 211. 
^ See also a Jewish prophecy in the Morning \A''atch, vol. i. p. 626. 



TREFACE. 



V 



riod of 112 Jubilees at 49 years; and, if we add 28 years to 
it, we are brought to tbe year of Christ 28, being the 35th 
Jubilee year from the Exodus as established in these pages. 
Thus, according to the authentic Chronology of the Seventy, 
it is proved that a period of 112 Jubilees and 17 years did 
actually elapse from creation to the baptism of the Messiah 
in Jordan, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him, 
which I suppose took place in that year. 

Since, however, the Jubilee is a sacred period which has 
especial reference, not to creation but to redemption, I am 
forced to dissent from the opinion of the celebrated Frank, 
as well as of the Jews, that it ascends so high as the Creation. 
A single Jubilee measured a period, at the close of which 
every one in Israel returned to his lost or alienated inheri- 
tance, and every past alienation was annihilated ; and there- 
fore I am led to conclude, that the great series of Jubilees 
could not begin to run or be counted till our first parents, by 
their disobedience, lost their inheritance. I conceive, then, 
that the year of their expulsion from Paradise was probably the 
epoch of the great Jubilean period.* If, therefore, we suppose 
that event to have occurred in the year 17 of the Creation, and 
that the great Jubilean period then began, it will follow that 
the year of Christ 28, when He was baptized in Jordan, was 
the 113th Jubilee year from the fall, the 112th Jubilee hav- 
ing expired in the year before. This perhaps affords as pro- 
bable a ground of conjecture as any that has yet been offered 

* It may at first view appear incongruous, that the first Jubilee should 
be dated at the period of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. 
But let it be considered that then was given to them the promise of the 
Incarnation of Messiah, the Seed of the Woman. Then were sacrifices 
instituted, and our first parents clothed with the skins of the animals slain. 
Then also the manifestation of the glory of the Shechinah first took 
place, the symbol of the grace and favour of God to fallen man, at the east 
of the garden of Eden to keep the way of the tree of life. The expulsion 
of Adam and Eve from the garden was in itself an act of mercy. There 
is no incongruity then in supposing that the Jubilee Trumpet then first 
sounded. For the sweet words, it shall bruise thy head, were to our 
first parents the note of Jubilee. 



vi 



PREFACE. 



with respect to the era of the fall, concerning which, as the 
Scriptures are wholly silent, our learned men have differed 
so widely in opinion ; some, as Usher, supposing that Adam 
fell the very day he was placed in Eden, while Dr Hales goes 
into the opposite extreme, and places the fall 100 years after 
the creation of Adam. 

That this event took place so soon as is generally suppos- 
ed, seems very unlikely ; for it is not to be supposed that the 
first great commandment of the Creator should have made a 
very slight impression on the mind of Adam, or that Eve was 
left unwarned and unguarded by him at a very early period. 
It seems more consistent, also, with probability, that the wily 
tempter did not at once enter upon the execution of his hell- 
ish enterprise, but waited a fit opportunity, when the sense 
of danger was, in a measure, worn oif, by long familiarity with 
the sight of the forbidden tree. On the other hand, the pe- 
riod of Dr Hales, I cannot but concur with the learned edi- 
tor of Dr Stackhouse's History of the Bible, in thinking very 
improbable. It is also inconsistent with the Oriental tradi- 
tion, — that Seth was not born till 130 years after the murder 
of Abel. 

These things, it will be understood, are offered only as 
conjectures. But that 112 Jubilees and 17 years did elapse 
from the creation to the year of Christ 28, is not a conjecture, 
but, I presume, a fact established by the testimony of the 
Septuagint. There is, indeed, a difference between the vari- 
ous copies of that version to the extent of 20 years in the 
antediluvian Chronology, which the Vatican edition makes 
2242 instead of 2262 years, the discrepancy being in the age 
of Methuselah when he begat Lamech, which the Alexandri- 
an and Aldine copies of the Seventy accord with the Hebrew 
in making 187 years, while the Vatican makes it only 167. 
But the testimony, also, of Josephus, is added to that of the 
Hebrew text in favour of the former number, and there 
can be no hesitation in preferring it. There is, moreover, 
another, and a most powerful testimony, for this Chronology, 
which has been preser^^ed by Eusebiiis in his Prseparatio 



PREFACE. 



vii 



Evangelica, lib. ix. c. xxi. He quotes, from the writings of 
Alexander Polyhistor, an extract from the History of Deme- 
trius, who lived about 220 years before Christ,* as follows, 

Eiv/zt ci'To rov A^uf4, iu? rou siffiXhiv ng Atyvffrov rovs rov lcij(T'/i(p irvyyivsis irn 
y/^xV ccTo ^5 H.circc>iXvffy.ov ica; r'/i; Ictzufi 'Tfa^ovffia.i m AtyvTfrov zrn a-r"^. 

There w^ere from Adam to the descent into Egypt of the 
" family of Joseph 3624 years, and from the deluge to the 
" arrival of Jacob in Egypt 1360 years." 

Now, the first of these sums of years, it will be seen, 
accords exactly'with the genuine Chronology of the Alexan- 
drian and Aldine copies of the Seventj^ 

From the Creation to the Flood .... 2262 years 

From the Flood to the birth of Abraham . . . 1072 

To the call of Abraham 75 

To the descent of Jacob into Egypt . . , . 215f 

Total from the Creation .... 3624 

The second period from the flood is deficient 2 years ; for the 
three last numbers 1072 + 75 215 = 1362 years. But 
it appears probable, either that Demetrius calculated from the 
birth of Arphaxad, 2 years after the flood, or that the 2 has 
dropped from his text or that of Eusebius. Be this as it may, 
a difference of 2 years cannot affect the general conclusion in 
favoiu" of the Chronology of the Alexandrian copies of the 
Seventy from the testimony of Demetrius, who lived at Alex- 
andria about half a century after it was made, and, therefore, 
had access, most probably, to the original autograph, deposit- 
ed in the library of that city. This testimony, then, appears 
quite conclusive. Or, were w^e to prefer the antediluvian pe- 
riod of Josephus, which is 2256 years, arising from a differ- 
ence of 6 years in the age of Lamech when he begat Noah, 

* See Hales, vol. i. p. 289. Dr Russell's Connect., vol. i. p. 63. 

f The particulars of this period are, 

To the birth of Isaac .... 25 years 

. Jacob . . . .60 

Jacob's age when he stood before Pharaoh 130 



215 



viii 



PREFACE. 



it would only make a corresponding difference of 6 years, 
being 11 years instead of 17, between the creation and the 
supposed commencement of the Jubilean period. 

The stream of the Scriptural Chronology begins with the 
generations of the antediluvian patriarchs, goes through the 
book of Genesis, and proceeds, without interruption, through 
the Pentateuch and book of Joshua to the division of the 
lands, which was in the 7 th year after the entrance into Ca- 
naan. Thence to the beginning of the 1st Servitude, under 
Cushan-rishathaim, the first blank occurs, there being no 
Scriptural Chronology now in existence of the intervening 
period, although there is reason to suspect, from the Stromata 
of Clemens of Alexandria, that the number of 27 years was 
formerly noted in some copies of the book of Joshua as mea- 
suring the interval between the death of Moses and the 1st 
Servitude, this period being called by Clemens, as it is by 
most of the ancient Chronographers, that of the administra- 
tion of Joshua himself; but the sums total of their various 
schemes of Chronology show that they included in it the 
whole interval till the 1st Servitude, much in the same way that 
Ptolemy continues the years of the reign of Alexander ^gus 
for 5 years after his death, to the accession of Ptolemy Soter 
of Egypt. 

The Scriptural Chronology commences again at the 1st Ser- 
vitude, and proceeds, without interruption, through the admi- 
nistrations of the Judges to the end of the 7tli Servitude, 1 
Sam. vii. 2. Here we have a second chasm, neither the length 
of the administration of Samuel nor of the reign of Saul being 
found in the Old Testament. Through the good providence 
of God, however, the former is supplied by Josephus, who 
informs us in his Antiq. vi. 13. 5., that Samuel ruled the 
people alone, after the death of Eli, 12 years, and with Saul 
18 years. This 12 years administration begins after the 7th 
Servitude, already mentioned, as is evident from 1 Sam. vii. 
13. The length of the reign of Saul is fixed by St Paul, 
Acts xiii. 21. 

The Scriptural stream begins once more in 2 Sam. v. 4., 



PREFACE. 



ix 



and goes do'5\ai5 without interruption, till the 37 th year of the 
captivity of Jeconiah, '2 Kings xxv. 27., where it comes in 
contact with the Astronomical Canon of Ptolemy, as shown 
in the 2d chapter of this Work. In the books of Ezra, Ne- 
hemiah, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah, various dates are 
also given to us, which bring down the Chronology to the 
20th of Artaxerxes, or the year b. c. 445. There is also 
mention in Neh.xiii. 6. of Nehemiah's returning to Artaxerxes 
in the 32 d year of his reign, and again, after certain days, 
how long, various conjectures have been formed, coming to 
Jerusalem. The 32d year of Artaxerxes was in the year 
B. c. 433, and it is the latest point of Chronology in the Old 
Testament. It is true that Dr Hales supposes that the nar- 
rative of Nehemiah brings dowTi the line of high priests to 
Jaddua.* But as the priesthood of Jaddua did not begin till 
B. c. 341, being 104 years after the date of Nehemiah's com- 
mission, it will be at once seen that this is altogether im- 
probable, and, therefore, we must conclude with Dr Gill, that 
the 11th, 22d, and 23d verses of Neh. xii. have been added 
since his time. Malachi, the last of the prophets, lived about 
the time of Nehemiah. Prideaux supposes he prophesied 
about B. c. 431, and Hales, 11 years later; but as no date is 
affixed to his prophecies, and we cannot, therefore, fix the 
exact time of his appearance, vv-e are still pinned down to the 
above-mentioned year, b. c. 433, as the latest authentic point 
of the Chronology of the Old Testament. 

The next inquiry which presents itself to the mind is, upon 
what principles the years of the generations, and the adminis- 
trations, and reigns, which form the basis of the Scriptural 
Chronology, are computed; whether in complete or current 
time. The determination of this point is attended wdth some 
difficulty, but, from an analytical ^n.ew of the reigns of Jehoia- 
kim and Zedekiah of Judah, who are both said to have reigned 
11 years, making a sum of 22 years, considerable light is 
thrown on the question. 



* Hales, vol. ii. p. o30. 
b 



X 



PREFACE. 



Josiali was slain in battle in the year b. c. 610, and was 
succeeded by Jelioahaz, who reigned 3 months. It is proved 
in this Work, that the following year, b. c. 609, was the first 
of the reign of Jehoiakim, and that his 4th year was the 1st 
of Nebuchadnezzar. Further, it appears from 2 Kings xxiv. 
12, that the 3 months' reign of Jehoiachin, who succeeded 
him, was in the 8th year of Nebuchadnezzar, and from 2 Chron. 
xxxvi. 9, 10, that it was not till the year was expired that 
he was carried captive to Babylon and Zedekiah made king 
in his room. It is, therefore, demonstrated by these facts, 
that the reign of Jehoiakim was only 10 years and some 
months in complete time, and that the 3 months' reign of Je- 
hoiachin was included in his lltli year. 

In the next place, we learn from what has been said, that 
the reign of Zedekiah began at the commencement of the 
following year, or in Nisan. It is accordingly manifest, that 
the years of his reign, and of the captivity of Jehoiachin, are 
equally computed from Nisan in the books of 2 Kings and 
EzekieL The eleven years' reign of Zedekiah was, however, 
as we knov/ from Jerem. xxxix. 2, in complete time only 10 
years, 3 months, and 8 days, and we thus learn that his reign, 
like that of Jehoiakim, was computed in current time. Vari- 
ous other examples of this mode of reckoning occur in the 
Tables in this Work, especially in the reigns of the kings of 
Israel. I content myself with mentioning the reigns of Na- 
dab, Baasha, and Ela of Israel, in p. 20, and the passages of 
Scripture referred to. I shall also, with regard to the Chro- 
nology of the kings of Israel, cite a remark of Mr Scott on 
1 Kings xxii. 51. " Learned men," says he, " suppose that 
the Chronology of the kings of Israel was adjusted to that of 
the kings of Judah." This I believe to be the exact state of 
the case. For the Chronology of the church, and, therefore, 
the world, is carried on through the line of the patriarchs and 
rulers of the church till the rise of the four Gentile monar- 
chies ; and Judah, and not Israel, being, properly speaking, 
after the revolt of the ten tribes, the Churchy the Chronolog}^ 
of the lyings of Israel is only introduced, as a connecting link 



PREFACE. 



xi 



as it were, to tliat of the kings of Judali, and to throw mutual 
light upon the histories of both branches of the family of 
Abraham. 

I proceed to observe, in the next place, that though we 
have thus seen that the reigns of individual kings are com- 
puted in current time, yet there must have been some prin- 
ciples whereby the series of reigns were equalized with com- 
plete years; for otherwise, there would be no well defined 
Chronology in the Scriptures. All would be doubt and un- 
certainty, and the very purpose for which the Chronology was 
given, would, in a great measure, be defeated. It is, accord- 
ingly, undeniable, that the Jews themselves, as well in their 
popular and current scheme of Chronology, as in the writings 
of their learned men, Josephus for example, do always calcu- 
late the series of the generations and administrations in the 
Scriptures as being in complete time. St Paul, in the syna- 
gogue of Antioch, Acts xiii. 20, adopts the same principle, 
since, as is shown in this Work, his period of 450 years comes 
out with the greatest exactness. 

The mode in which this was effected seems to me to have 
been as follows. The years of each king were reckoned from 
the 1st of Nisan. A king who reigned ten years and a half 
of complete time, counting his first year from Nisan, was 
computed to reign the whole of the 11th year, and his reign 
was therefore recorded as being 11 years. His successor 
would, in such a case, begin to reign six months before the 
end of the former computed reign ; but the first year of the 
reign of the successor was not, in the Scriptural reckoning, 
that in which he actually began to reign, but it commenced 
in the Nisan following. The table in p. 20 affords an exam- 
ple of this. Asa reigned in the 20th of Jeroboam of Israel, 
whose reign was 22 years. But as Nadab, the successor of 
Jeroboam, began to reign in the 2d of Asa, it is plain that 
the 21st of Jeroboam was computed the 1st year of Asa and 
not the 20th, when he actually began to reign. 

When, on the other hand, a king died in the earlier part 
of a year, aSj for example, the first or second month, it appears 



xii 



PREFACE. 



to me that the converse of the above rule obtained. Thus, 
in the same 20th page, Rehoboam must have lived till the 
beginning of the 18th of Jeroboam, since Abijah's reign be- 
gan in that year. The odd months, or weeks, or days of 
Rehoboam, after he completed his 17th year, are, however, 
not counted to him, but the reign of Abijah is reckoned from 
the 1st of Nisan before the death of Rehoboam and his own 
accession. 

By these means, in a series of reigns and administrations, 
the years of each are made complete time. The only excep- 
tion to this in the whole main stream of the Scripture Chro- 
nology, appears to be in the account of the reign of Jehoram 
of Judah, which, I have shown in the 3d chapter, must, in 
order to harmonize the Scriptures with themselves, be reduced 
from 8 years current to 6 complete, I do not pretend to be 
able to assign a reason for this anomaly, but I have, in the 
proper place, given, as it appears to me, the most irrefragable 
arguments from the Scriptures to prove that this reign must 
be limited to 6 years. 

I shall only say further on this subject, that, as the reigns 
of the kings of Israel do not form the basis of any Scriptural 
Chronology, but seem to have been introduced for the illus- 
tration and confirmation of the Chronology and the his- 
tory of the kings of Judah, the length of these reigns will be 
frequently found computed in current time, as will appear by 
a reference to the tables in this Work ; but the text itself, as 
in the case of Jehoram of Judah, contains such internal marks 
as to enable us to reduce them to complete time. 

There is one other point which it now becomes necessary 
to touch, in consequence of my having been forced into a 
controversy respecting it.* The Tract on the Jubilean 

* The whole of the discussion which follows, upon a point as to which 
all men of real knowledge of the subject are now agreed, namely, the true 
length of the Jubilee, has been forced upon me by the endeavours of the 
Reviewer of my Tract on the Jubilean Chronology in the Investigator, to 
overthrow my whole reasoning, asserting that I am wrong as to the length 
of the Jubilee, which he maintains to be 50 instead of 49 years. It was 



PREFACE. 



xiii 



Chronology, wliicli was piiblislied by me about a year ago, 
proceeds, like the tables of this Work, upon the foundation, 
that the Jubilean period is exactly 49 solar years, a point 
which, to those who have obtained any knowledge of the ana- 
logies of the Scripture, is no less certain than that the week 
contains 7 days. This computation, as I have sho\m in the 
last chapter of the present Work, is that of the ablest Jevvish 
writers, and of the synagogue itself, as is demonstrated by 
the extract from Maimonides, containing the computation of 
the Jubilees, both before and after the captivity. Among 
Christian wTiters, it is supported by Usher, W. Lowth, Shuck- 
ford, Calmet,* Scaliger, Hales, Frank, Horne, Gill, Scott, the 
\^Titers of the Ancient Universal History, and many others. 
It will be found also, that some at least, I suspect the greater 
number, of those who are named as holding the opposite view, 
do, in effect, accord with us. Josephus, for example, says the 
Jubilee was the 50th year, and even Usher says the same.f 
But Josephus nowhere says that 50 complete years elapsed 
from Jubilee to Jubilee. In effect, to say that it was the 50th 

my intention to have exposed the mistakes and misstatements of the above 
writer in this Preface. But his errors are so numerous, that it would re- 
quire more time and space than I can now spare to do it completely ; the task 
is also an ungrateful one, and, as he has actually confessed, in his Number 
for December last, the latest I have yet seen, that he is not icell versed 
in the subject generally, or, in other words, that he is ignorant of it, and 
also, that he had not, when he wrote the notice of my Work, taken the 
trouble to read what I had previously written on the same subject, I shall, 
for the present at least, leave his critical labours in the vale of that obli- 
vion where they will speedily repose. I might here, in a very few words, say 
some very severe things against this writer, who, by the sarcastic and bitter 
tone of his last article, has given me abundant provocation ; but it is forbid- 
den to me to return evil for evil. I shall therefore refrain from doing so, 
but simply add, that three different scientific persons have favoured me with 
remarks on the Tract he has endeavoured to overthrow, and they exhibit 
a complete contrast to the spirit he has manifested. Men of real sci- 
ence always do justice to the labours of othei-s. 

* Calmet in his Dictionary expressly says, that the interval between 
Jubilee and Jubilee is 49 years. 

t " Hence also," says he, viz. from the 1st Sabbatic year, " the years of Ju- 
bilee, or of every fifty years space, is (are) to be reckoned." Annals, p. 27. 



xiv 



PREFACE. 



year, is just saying tliat there were 49 complete years from 
Jubilee to Jubilee, on the same principle that one Sunday is 
the 8th day from the Sunday before. It is, in point of fact, 
quite as absurd to say that the Jubilee, being the 50th year, 
authorizes us to affirm that there are 50 years in the period, 
as it would be to maintain, that because Pentecost, when the 
Holy Ghost came down on the Apostles, was the 50th day 
from the day of the waving of the first-fruits of the barley 
harvest, when our Lord arose, therefore there were 50 com- 
plete days in the interval.* 

I remark, in the next place, that Josephus has in fact in 
his own history decided the point, since he informs us, as is 
shown in the last chapter of this Work, that the years b. c. 
135 and 37 were both Sabbaths. For the interval between 
them is 98 years, being the space of 2 Jubilees at 49 years. 
Now, had the Jubilean period been 50 years, since it is ac- 
knowledged by all who hold that view, that the Jubilee year 
always was the year after the 7tli Sabbath, then the year 
B. c. 135, being a Sabbath, the year b. c. 37, instead of being 
a Sabbath, must have turned out the 5th of a Shemittah, and 
the Sabbath woidd have been 2 years afterwards, in b. c. 35. 
In like manner, the various Sabbatic years which I have es- 
tablished from the year b. c. 891 downwards, do all establish 
the true length of the Jubilee, placing it upon the immoveable 
basis of the authentic history of the Scriptures. 

Before, however, I leave this subject, I must be permitted 
to refer to a striking fact, in confirmation of the length of the 
Jubilee, with which I was first made acquainted by a scientific 
friend, in some remarks he favoured me with on the astrono- 
mical cycles of Mons. de Chesaiix : — 

" The simple perfect cycle of which the others are formed 
" is that of Meton, the basis of the Athenian calendar, a pe- 

* It may appear almost incredible, but it is quite true, that the review- 
er in the Investigator has actually asserted, (see the No. for December, 
1834, p. 124,) that the interval here mentioned, from the day of the wax- 
ing of the first-fruits to Pentecost, is 50 complete days. Now, it is quite 
in vain to reason with a person offering sucli absurdities to the public. 



PREFACE. 



XV 



" riod of 19 years; but its base is a prime, and will not re- 
" solve itself into factors. Tlie others are formed from it 
" by multiplying by the nimibers up to 20, or beyond ; the 
" nearer the more accurate, and adding- 11. 

" Taking then 1 for the multiplier, we have 30 years at 
" once a simple and composite cycle, as it resolves into the 
" factors 2, 3, 5, which, wdth 7, are the base of most sacred 
" numbers. Thus the prophetic month, or the difference 
" between the two periods of Daniel's prophecy, 1260 days 
" and 1290 days, interpreted a day for a year, is the simplest 
" sacred and perfect cycle. Taking then 2 for the multi- 
" plier, we have 49 years, like the other, at once perfect and 
" composite, as it consists of 7 X 7 years. This is still more 
" remarkable, as being the great Sabbatic or Jubilee period, 
" composed of seven Sabbaths of years, the great and most sa- 
" cred cycle of the Jewish economy." 

The cyclical character of the period of 49 years, thus stat- 
ed in the remarks of my scientific friend, forms the basis of 
the Jubilean system of the learned Professor Frank, of w^hich 
an account is given by Mr Granville Penn, in his Work on 
the Mineral and Mosaical Geologies.* According to Frank, 
49 tropical years are equal to 50 lunar years and a half, 1 day 
and 8 horn's. I have, however, made the calculation, and find 
by the tables of lunations of Mayer, that the difference is 
somewdiat less, being 1 day, 7 hours, 58 minutes, 4 seconds, 
42 thirds. The period of 49 years is thus a luni-solar cycle, 
at the end of which, the sun and moon are foimd vrithin 1 day, 
and somewhat less than 8 hours, of the point in the heavens 
from whence they set out. The proof of tliis is as follows : 

D. H, U. S. Til. 

49 Tropical years contain . . 17,896 20 ol 12 0 
50|- Lunar years, or 606 Lunations, contain 17,895 12 53 7 18 

The difference or the Epact is . . 1 7 58 4 42 

It hence follows, that the 49 th year of the Jubilee is tlie 



* Vol. i. p. .307—326. 



xvi 



PREFACE. 



last half of the SOth, and the first half of the 51st lunar 
year. 

Further, I find by the tables of Mayer and Newton (cor- 
recting 9" of excess in the solar year,) that at the end of 22 
Jubilees, or 49 X 22 = 1078 years, the sun and moon are 
mthin 5 hours and 26 minutes of the points from whence they 
set out at its commencement. The proof of this is as follows : — 

D. H. M. S. Th. 

13,333 Lunations contain . . 393,731 8 12 43 29 
1078 Tropical years . . . 393,731 2 46 24 

The difference is which the Moon is slow 5 26 19 29 

Thus then it evidently appears that the period of the Jubi- 
lee, or 49 years, is a perpetual cycle, the 49th year contain- 
ing the last half of the 50th, and the first half of the 51st lu- 
nar year, with an epact of 1 day, 7 hours, 58 minutes, which, 
at the end of 22 Jubilees, or 1078 years, is brought to a dif- 
ference between the sun and moon of less than 5 hours and a 
half from the points in the heavens from wdience they set out. 
These two numbers of 49 and 1078 years are also, (I think,) 
the only two multiples of the perfect number 7, \vhich are 
cyclical, excepting 315, the quarter of the prophetical number 
of 1260 years, and 630 the half of it, and consequently that 
number itself. But though these three numbers are all mul- 
tiples of the perfect number 7, they are not, as the period of 
1078 years, multiples of its square. The number of 315 is 
equal to 7 X 45, and the other two in proportion. But the 
period of 1078 years is equal to the square of 7, that is, 49 
multiplied by 3 times 7, or three septenaries of Jubilees plus 
the first or initial Jubilee of the 4th Septenary, and is there- 
fore a most remarkable cyclical number. 

It has sometimes been unjustly charged against me, that I 
have borrowed information from others which was not bor- 
rowed, but original. I shall here, therefore, in order to pre- 
vent such a charge in the present instance, communicate to 
the reader the process by wdiich I arrived at the cycle of 1078 



PREFACE. 



xvii 



years. The lunar epact, at the end of 49 years, or 1 Jubilean 
period, has been shown above to be 1 day, 7 hours, 58 min- 
utes, 4 seconds, 42 thirds, which, being reduced to seconds, 
gives 115084.7. In the next place, 1 lunation is 29 days, 12 
hours, 44 minutes, 2 seconds, 53 thirds, which is equal to 
2551442.9 seconds. The fraction ISJ^? therefore, expresses 
the proportion between the epact of the Jubilee and a com- 
plete limation. Dividing the denominator by the numerator, 
it gives the quotient 22, with a remainder of 19579.5 seconds. 
The quotient 22 multiplied by 49 years, the length of the 
Jubilee, gives the cycle of 1078 years, and the remainder 
19579.5 seconds, gives the difference between the sim and 
moon at the end of that period, yiz. 5 hours, 26 minutes, 19 
seconds, 30 thirds, w-hicli the moon is slow, being just 1 third, 
or the 2i^o part of an hour, or part of a minute more than 
the former calculation from the tables of lunations, and the 
difference arises from my assuming the decimal .9 instead of 
.883, to express the 53 thirds in the sum of 1 lunation being 
the denominator. 

In tlie next place, as the period of 1078 years, composed of 
3 septenaries of Jubilees plus 1 Jubilee, is remarkable as an 
astronomical cycle of Jubilees, so it w^ill be found to be no less 
remarkable as an historical cycle. The 22d Jubilee from the 
Exodus, being the last of the first cycle of 1078 years, began 
in the year b. c. 610, in which Josiah, the last righteous king 
of Judah, feU in battle, and with him the kingdom of Judah 
reaUy fell, to rise no more, till Chiist shall sit on the throne of 
his father David ; for in 4 years after, or b. c. 606, the captiv- 
ity in Babylon commenced. This Jubilee expired at the end 
of the year b. c. 562, in which Nebuchadnezzar died, and 5 
days before its end, Jehoiacliin was released from prison by 
E"^il-merodach, the successor of Nebuchadnezzar : and that 
the release of Jehoiachin is a marked Scriptm^al era, is shown 
in the second chapter of this work. This Jubilee, then, com- 
prehended in itself the overthrow^ of the kingdom of JudaL, 
and the rise of the first of the four Gentile monarchies. 

The last Jubilee of the second period of 1078 years being 

c 



xviii 



PREFACE. 



the 44tli from tlie Exodus, commenced, as will be seen in the 
Appendix IV., in the year of Christ 469, exactly 1078 years 
after the death of Josiah, and during the dying agonies of the 
Roman empire of the West, 7 years or 1 Shemittah before the 
subversion of that empire in the person of Augustulus. It 
expired in the year 517, and included the period during which 
the letting or hindering power to the manifestation of the 
Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, (who is the Pope of 
Rome,) was taken out of the way.* The first also of the 
three Gothic horns, which were to be rooted out before the 
episcopal horn with eyes of Daniel's fourth beast,f namely, 
the kingdom of the Heruli, fell by the hand of Theodoric in 
the year 493 during this Jubilee, and the removal of the seat 
of government by Theodoric from Rome to Ravenna, was 
that, according to Machiavel, which first made the Popes gain 
a potency.J At this time, we are accordingly to place the 
first beginnings of the manifestation of the Man of Sin, al- 
though it was not till the 16th year of the next or 45th Jubi- 
lee, A. D. 533, that the saints were, by the decree of Justinian, 
given into his hand. Now, if we refer to secular and philo- 
sophical writers of eminence, we shall find them all, wdiether 
Robertson, § or Gibbon, or Koch, or Russell, or Hallam, 
placing the fall of the Western Empire, as being amongst the 
most signal revolutions in the history of nations, that which 
is confessedly the basis of the whole political and ecclesiastical 
edifice of modern Europe, and we may add America also. 

The concluding Jubilee of the third cyclical period of 1078 
years, being the 66th from the Exodus, commenced in the 
year 1547, in which the Smalcaldic league was dissolved by 
the arms of Charles V. at the battle of Muhlburg, and the Pro- 
testants of Germany were broken and laid prostrate before 
him. This was also the year of the accession of Edward VI. 
to the throne of England, the second era of the Reformation, 
in that kingdom. In this year the images were first taken away 



2 Thess. ii. 6, 7, 8. f Dan. vii. 8. J Hist, of Florence, B. i. 
§ See his Hist, of Charles V. vol. i. p. 1. 



PREFACE. 



xix 



in one of the cliurclies of London, and the following year 
they were generally removed by an order of the council ad- 
dressed to Cranmer. The year 1548, the second of this Ju- 
bilee, was signalized by the publication of the Interim, and 
the suppression of the Protestant worship throughout the 
greater part of the Empire, the Protestant pastors of some of 
the imperial cities being carried away captive, and the rest 
expelled. The year 1552 saw the resurrection as from the 
dead, (according to the expressions used to describe these 
events by Fra Paolo Sarpi, a Catholic historian,) of the Pro- 
testant church, and its re-establishment by the treaty of Passau, 
which was followed in the year 1555 by a recess of the Diet 
of Augsburg, finally securing to the Protestants complete 
equality with the Catholics in the political constitution of the 
empire.* 

This Jubilee ended in the year 1595. Its remaining space 
w^as filled with important events, among which we number the 
death of the Protestant cause during the bloody reign of 
Queen Mary of England, and its resurrection after the acces- 
sion of Elizabeth in the years 1558 and 1559; — the Reforma- 
tion in Scotland in the last of these years ; — the massacre of 
St Bartholomew in France in the year 1572; — the declara- 
tion of independence of the Seven United Provinces of Hol- 
land in 1579 ; — the destruction of the invincible Armada in 
1588, and the consequent final defeat of the designs of Philip 
II. of Spain, for the subjugation of England. Besides the 
events which I have mentioned, we must include, in this Ju- 
bilee, nearly the whole proceedings of the council of Trent, 
which gave their final form to the doctrines and the worship 
of the Romish church, seeing that this council first met in 
the year 1445, and finally broke up in 1563. 

It thus appears that the concluding Jubilee of each of the 
three cyclical periods of 1078 years, which have elapsed 

* See my Dissertation on the Seals, &c. chap. ix. p. ]37 — 144, where 
these events are supposed to be the fulfilment of the death of the Apoca- 
lyptic witnesses and their resurrection. 



XX 



PREFACE. 



since the Exodus, has been an important crisis in the history 
of the world. The first was the era of the overthrow of the 
kingdom of Judah, and the rise of the first of the four mon- 
archies of Daniel. The second was that of the fall of the 
Western empire, and the begun manifestation of the Man of 
Sin. The third was the great crisis of the Reformation in 
Germany, England, Scotland, and Holland, and the era of 
the full and final development of the theological system of 
Rome, and was crowded with events illustrious in history, and 
pregnant with consequences bearing upon the great destinies 
of the human race. 

This cycle of 22 Jubilees, or 1078 years, with the impor- 
tant and striking illustrations it has received from history, 
were altogether unknown to me when I began this Preface ; 
and this is only one of the many instances in which I have 
found, that in every step of the investigations into which I 
have been compelled to enter, by the attempt made by the 
Reviewer already mentioned, to dispute the true length of 
the Jubilee, new light has broken in upon me. 

Having tried the period of 70 Jubilees, or 3430 years, 
which form the subject of my Tract on the Jubilean Chrono- 
logy, I find that it is not cyclical ; but as a number, it com- 
bines in itself very remarkable properties. 1. As a period of 
Jubilees it contains the sacred root 7, multiplied by 10, which 
is by the ancients, and indeed all nations, considered as one 
of the complete or perfect numbers. 2. As a period measured 
by ShemittaJis, or Sabbatic weeks of years, it contains the 
square of the perfect number 7, or 49, multiplied by 10 = 
490 Shemittahs. 3. As a period of years it contains the cube 
of 7, or 343, multiplied by 10 = to 3430 years. It combines 
then in itself all the characters of a number of perfection or 
mystery. 

I have also examined the period of 50 years, alleged by 
the Reviewer to be the measure of the Jubilean period, but 
it contains no cyclical properties, nor does any multiple of 50 
occur as a cycle, till we reach the great prophetic period of 
2300 years, which is proved in my Tract on the Jubilean 



PREFACE. 



Chronology, to be a cycle. It contains 46 multiplied 
by 50. 

I shall now state that I have arrived at the view in which 
the learned Frank long preceded me, (although I was ignor- 
ant of this till I had myself formed the same conclusion,) that 
as the Jews had two years, a sacred and a civil, so there are 
two series of Jubilees, a sacred and a civil. Frank calls the 
one the Mundane, and the other the Judaical. I should 
rather term the former the Prophetical and Ecclesiastical, 
having reference to the great eras of Redemption ; and the 
second Civil or Judaical, being connected vvith the civil eco- 
nomy of the Jewish state — the purchase and redemption of 
lands, and deliverance from slavery. This Jubilee began, as 
is established in Lev. xxv. 9., on the 10th day of Tisri. The 
years of the Jubilees of redemption and prophecy are, I con- 
ceive, reckoned from Nisan. The first of om* present series, 
ha^ang relation to the national redemption of Israel, which 
forms the subject of my former Tract, began at Nisan, b. c. 
1639, at the Exodus, the year of v/hich, is called in the Zohar 
— a work of the highest authority among the Jews — the 
YEAR OF THE Great Jubilee. It is also a singular coinci- 
dence, that as they thus date their Jubilees from the samiC 
epoch as is adopted by me for the present series, so they place 
the end of their supposed 112 Jubilees of 50 years, computed 
from Creation, in their year 5600, answering to our year 1840, 
which, according to my own scheme, is the end of the 71st 
Jubilee from the Exodus. I beg leave also to assure the 
reader, that neither of these coincidences were known to me 
when I adopted my scheme of 70 Jubilees, reckoned from the 
Exodus. I cannot, however, believe that tliis double coinci- 
dence is accidental. It appears to me much more probable, that 
when they curtailed their Chronology, some traditionary know- 
ledge of the true Jubilean period still remained as a secret doc- 
trine of the Cabbalistic school, from which this remarkable har- 
mony has emanated in the shape of a calculation of 112 Jubi- 
lees of 50 years, = 5600 years, ending at a point of time which 
they knew by their ancient authentic tables to be a Jubilee, 



xxii 



PREFACE. 



In drawing this long Preface to a close, since so mucli 
weight is in this Work attached to the Shemittah, or Sabbatic 
week, as a Chronological test, I shall lay before the reader a 
short method of calculating the years of the Shemittah in 
every scheme of Chronology. Let any given year, which on 
that scheme is ascertained to be a Sabbath, or the first or any 
given year of a Shemittah, be put down, and from it lay down 
a whole Shemittah, then divide the sum of each year by 7, 
putting down the quotient and remainder. This will aiford a 
test for the whole of the same series of years, whether before 
or after Christ. Thus, in the scheme of this Work, the year 
of the Exodus, b. c. 1639, is the 1st of a Shemittah and a 
Jubilee. From it I therefore lay down a Shemittah, or week. 

Year before Christ. Year of Shemittah. Quotient when divided by 7. Remainder. 



1639 1 234 I 

1638 2 234 0 

1637 3 233 6 

1636 4 233 5 

1635 5 233 4 

1634 6 233 3 

1633 7 Sabbath 233 2 



Now, it follows from this, that in the Chronology of this 
Work, every year before Christy of which the sum, when di- 
vided by 7, leaves a remainder of 1, is the 1st of a Shemittah, 
and every Jubilee year in the series before Christ must an- 
swer this test. Every year, of which the sum, divided by 7, 
leaves a remainder of 2, is, in like manner, a Sabbath, and so 
with respect to all the other years. We thus establish that 
the year before Christ, 1, is the 1st of a Shemittah, and, 
therefore, the year after Christ, 7, is the 1st of a Shemittah, 
and by laying down a Shemittah from that year to the year 
A. c. 1 3, and dividing by 7 as before, we obtain a like test for 
the whole years after Christ in this scheme of Chronology, and 
hence it follows that the year 1834 is, as laid down in my 
Jubilean Chronology, the 1st of a Shemittah; for, divided by 
7, it gives the quotient 262, and no remainder. 

By applying the above rule, the attentive reader will be 



PREFACE. 



xxiii 



enabled to try tlie correctness of all my assertions as to the 
schemes of other Clironographers in the last chapter of this 
Work. I must here, however, mention, that while the body of 
this Work has been passing through the press, I have found, 
by a more careful examination of Usher's Annals, that he him- 
self appears to have discovered the error of 1 year in his 
scheme of Shemittahs which I charge upon him ; for in the 
later part of his Chronology he brings them a year lower 
down. Thus, his first Jubilee year is b. c. 1396, and he er- 
roneously, also, makes the Jubilee the same as the 7th Sab- 
batic year. Now, 1396 divided by 7, gives the quotient of 
199 with a remainder of 3, and he calculates on this principle 
down to the year b. c. 612, which gives a quotient of 87 
with a remainder of 3, and, according to this, the year b. c. 
591 is, as said in pages 6 and 80, a Shemittah, for it gives a 
quotient of 84 and a remainder of 3. In the subsequent pe- 
riods, however, the learned writer diverges 1 year from his 
former calcidations. I have not been able to discover exactly 
where he makes the alteration, as his Annals are very incor- 
rectly printed ; the year Before Christ is frequently left blank 
in the columns, and he often varies a year from his own 
principles of calculation. He, however, places his 20th Ju- 
bilee in B. c. 465, and his 22d in b. c. 367, which both di- 
verge still a year from the truth; but his 30th Jubilee is 
found in the year of Christ 27, which, on his principle, is 
therefore a Sabbath or Shemittah. Now, according to the 
Chronology of this Work, the year after Christ 28 being the 
35th Jubilee, the preceding year, 27, is the 7th Sabbatic and 
last year of the 34th Jubilee, and it is thus evident, that at 
this point of time, Usher has got into the true system of 
Shemittahs. But, though at last right as to the Shemittahs, 
he is wrong from first to last as to the Jubilees, and this even 
supposing his Chronology to be right. For, instead of count- 
ing his Jubilees from the first year of tillage, which is the 
epoch he himself fixes for the Sabbaths, he computes the 1st 
Jubilee from the 7 th year of tillage, or the year of the world 
2560, which he makes the 1st Sabbath, and, counting 7 Sab- 



xxiv 



PREFACE. 



baths from this year, he arrives at a. m. 2609, ansvv^ering, ac- 
cording to his tables, to the year b. c. 1396, which he makes 
the 1st Jubilee; and thus it is plain that his 1st Jubilee, in- 
stead of being- the 7th Sabbatic year from the entrance into 
Canaan, or from the first year of tillage, which, upon his 
principles, identifying the Jubilee with every 7th Sabbath, it 
ought to be, falls on the 8th Sabbath, and, instead of being 
the 50th year, as commanded, is the 56th. He seems to have 
been led into this departure from every correct principle of 
computation by his determination to make the first years of 
our Lord's ministry, or, rather, the year of his baptism, a 
Jubilee, which it could not have been upon his scheme, had 
he computed from the first year of tillage. On this scheme, 
the year of Christ 20, and not, as he fixes it, the year 27, 
turns out the 30th Jubilee from the year b. c. 1450 or 51,* 
as the first year of tillage, 

Dr Hales appears to have erred in his Jubilean period for 
the same reason as Dr Usher, viz. a determination to find the 
first year of our Lord's ministry to be a Jubilee year. He 
therefore calculates the Jubilean period, not from the first 
year of tillage after the final division of the lands, which, on 
his own principles, he ought to do, but from the year b. c. 
1589, which he fixes as the first general Sabbatic year. Now, 
calculating from the 7th year before, as Dr Hales ought to 
have done, or the year b. c. 1595, the 33d Jubilee comes out, 
according to his principle, identifying it with the 7th Sabba- 
tic year, in a. d. 22, and on my principle, which makes it the 
year after the 7th Sabbatic year, in a. d. 23. f 

I shall now give a short summary of the difference between 
Dr Usher's Chronology and that of this Work, from the Exo- 
dus to the Christian era. According to the true Chronology, 
as established in these pages, the length of that period is 

* There are so many errors in Usher's columns of years, that it is not 
easy to say whether he intended b. c. 1450, or 1451, as the first year of till- 
age. His first Jubilee, b. c. 1396, requires the last. See p. 6 of this Work- 

I See my Jubilean Chronology, Preface, pp. vii and viii, (where, in line 
17 from top, for 1589 read 1590,) and p. 2. 



PREFACE. 



XXV 



1639 years, and Usher makes it 1491. The difference is, 
therefore, 148 years, equal to 3 Jubilees or 21 Shemittahs, 
and 1 year. This difference is accounted for asfollows : — 

Years. 

Usher makes from the Exodus to the division of the lands only 46 

years instead of 47, the difference is 1 

He cuts off the whole 7 Servitudes, merging them in the adminis- 
trations 131 

He shortens the reign of Jehoram of Judah to 4 years, the differ- 
ence is 2 

He rejects the Interregnum in Judah 12 

He takes 1 year from the reign of Joash, and 1 from Ahaz . . 2 

Total difference as above 148 

I shall next state, for the information of the reader, that 
though in the Tables of this Work I have followed most Chro- 
nologers in placing the nativity of our Lord in the year 4 
before the vulgar era, which was the year of Rome u. c. 750, 
I strongly incline to believe it was a year later, or in b. c. 3. 
This was the opinion of Scaliger, as appears from the testi- 
mony of Dr Macknight,* and of other writers of great note.f 
Clemens of Alexandria^ likewise, in the Stromata, lib. i., c. 
xxi., places the nativity in the 28th year of Augustus, which 
answers to b. c. 3 ; and if this be the true date of that great 
event, then it makes our Lord, according to the testimony of 
St Luke, to have been exactly 30 years of age ^ in a. d. 28, 
in which I place his baptism. And that the usual date of his 
baptism is too early, appears to me evident, because, as it is 
generally admitted that his public ministry did not begin till 
autumn in a. d. 29, which, notwithstanding the contrary opi- 
nion of Dr Hales, I believe to be its true date, if we suppose 
him to have been baptized in the year 27 we must allow an 
interval of 2 years between his baptism and the beginning of 
his ministry, which, I think, does not accord with the natural 
sense of the Gospel narrative. 

* Chronol. Dissert, in his Harmony of the Gospels, Dis. iv. 
t Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Syncellus, Baronius, Calvisius, and 
Vossius, also adopt the same date. See Hales, vol. i. p. 214. 

d 



XXVI 



PREFACE. 



Dr Hales also, in reasoning upon the date of our Lord's 
first passover, falls into a singular error. It is generally 
agreed tliat Herod began to rebuild the Temple in the year 
B. c. 17. Now, we learn from the words in John ii. 20, (as 
rendered by Dr Hales,) forty and six years has this Temple 
been building^ that when our Lord appeared at Jerusalem at 
the feast of the passover it was the 46th current year from 
the year b. c. 17. " This," says Dr Hales, "determines the 
date of our Lord's first passover (to be) a» d. 28, which was 
45 years complete, or the 46th current, from b. c. 17. But 
there is a mistake here of a year. For from b. c. 17 to a. d. 
28 are only 44 years complete or 45 current. It follows, 
therefore, that the date of our Lord's first passover was a year 
later than Dr Hales supposes, viz. in a. d. 29, and this great- 
ly strengthens the argument for placing his baptism in the 
year 28. 

I do not offer the above opinion as to the date of the nati- 
vity as being yet altogether matured, but certainly all my 
present prepossessions are in favour of it ; and should it be 
established, then the death of Herod, and, consequently, the 
accession of Archelaus, must be brought down 1 year, for 
which there are reasons of considerable weight. 

The only other error I have yet detected in these tables, 
is, that whereas I have followed Prideaux in making a. d. 15 
the first of Tiberius, I now conceive, that, according to the 
principles usually followed, the year of Christ 14, in which 
Augustus died, is properly the 1st of Tiberius. I have also 
omitted to note in the column for Jubilees and Sabbatic years, 
that the year b. c. 37 was a Sabbath. I fear, that in the nu- 
merous calculations contained in these pages, other and greater 
errors may be discovered. I must, in that case, throw myself 
on the indulgence of my readers, assuring them that I have 
spared no labour in endeavouring to attain to perfect ac- 
curacy. 

It would be wrong for me to conclude this long Preface 
without acknowledging how much I owe to the writers who 
have preceded me. Other and greater men have laboured, 



PREFACE. 



xxvii 



and I have entered into their labours ; for had not the works of 
Prideaux and Dr Hales, and Dr Russell, already existed, the 
Tract now sent forth could not have been written ; and 1 am 
the more anxious to express my great obligations to the two 
writers last mentioned, because I have freely differed from 
them on various points of chronological disquisition, while I 
have received from them a mass of information. 

I wish also to testify, that I rise from this Work with new 
and deeper feelings of veneration for the sacred Scriptures, 
and I trust also of more profound adoration of the wisdom 
and foreknowledge of God, in furnishing us with the means 
of certainly detecting the corruptions introduced at a later 
period into the sacred text by the Masoretic doctors, for the 
purpose of throwing back the Chronology of the world, in 
order to prove that the "Messiah is not come. I am, above 
all, struck with the wisdom of God in making the record of 
an event so apparently trivial in itself as the release of Jeho- 
iachin from captivity, in the first year of Evil-merodach, the 
pivot on which turns the exact Chronology of the church in 
that and the preceding ages, and to my mind this circum- 
stance, generally so little noticed, affords one of the strongest 
evidences, that the Scriptures are, in the minutest facts which 
they record, given by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 



LATNSHAW, 

March Wth, 1835. 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE. 



At tlie same time that the last proof-sheet of the Preface 
readied me from the Press, I received the Number of the 
Investigator for March, wherein are some valuable remarks 
by T. R. Birks, Esq. of Trinity college, Cambridge, in de- 
fence of my argument from the Astronomical Cycles of 
Chesaux, in the second section of my Tract on the Jubilean 
Chronology. 

Feeling that I am deeply indebted to Mr Birks for his 
able help in this controversy, and also for the information I 
received from him last summer, respecting the principles of 
calculating the cycles by the mode of continued fractions, 
vi^hich I have availed myself of in this Preface, in calculating 
the cycle of 1078 years, it is with considerable regret that I 
venture to differ from him upon any point connected with 
these inquiries. But as he thinks, that in calculating the 
Jubilees I have erred a year in the whole series, I shall lay 
before the reader the passage in his Paper, wherein he alleges 
that I have thus erred, and then olFer some brief remarks in 
answer to it. 

" With regard to the Jubilees, Mr Cuninghame makes an 
" error of a year, I think, in passing from the years Before 
" Christ to the years After. If his data of the Exodus be 
just, the Jubilee years will be 1793 and 1842." 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE. 



XX ix 



Now, I must first observe, tliat I was perfectly aware of 
the fact, that there is, through the inadvertency of writers on 
subjects of Chronology, frequently in calculating from years 
Before to years After Christy the loss of a year ; and in the 
Christian Observer for November, 1807, nearly 28 years ago, 
in my very first Paper on the Prophetic Numbers, I pointed 
out that Mr Faber had fallen into this identical error in the 
earlier editions of his Work on the 1260 years, in calculat- 
ing the number in Dan. viii. 14, which he then held to be 
2200 years. Mr Faber, with an ingenuousness highly honour- 
able to him, immediately acknowledged the mistake. 

It seems to me, however, that the shortest and most con- 
vincing way of bringing the correctness of my mode of calcu- 
lating the Jubilees to the test, will be to lay down a period 
of 2 Shemittahs, or weeks of years, from the year Before 
Christ 7, to the year After Christ 7, assuming the first year 
to be the first of a Shemittah, and to see the result : — 



Years Before Christ. Years of Shemittah. 

7 1 

6 2 

5 3 

4 4 

3 5 

2 6 

1 7 Sabbath. 



After Christ. 



1 1 of 2d Shemittah. 

2 2 

3 3 

4 4 

5 5 

6 6 

7 7 Sabbath, 

8 1 of 3d Shemittah. 



It appears quite clear from the above example, tliat b. c, 
7 + A. c. 7 are equal to 14 years, containing 2 complete 
Sabbatic weeks, and that the 3d Shemittah begins in a, c, 8. 



XXX 



rOSTSCKIPT TO THE I'llEFACE. 



Now the same principles of calculation must lead to tlie con- 
clusion that B. c. 1639 -f a. c. 1791 are equal to 3430 years, 
which divided by 7 = 490 Shemittahs, and divided again by 
7 = 70 Jubilees. 

It is quite true, that if we were calculating astronomically^ 
and if the question to be solved were, " that having computed 
" the time of the New Moon in June b. c. 1639, {when the 
" children of Israel were encamped before Mount Sinai,) it is 
" required to know when the New Moon, 3430 complete solar 
" years, later in time falls^^ we must arrive at June, a. d. 
1792; because, from June, b. c. 1639, to June, a. d. 1791, 
are only 3429 years. 

The reason of this dilFerence is, that astronomical calcula- 
tions always require complete time, whereas all eras of Chro- 
nology, although founded on the basis of complete astronomi- 
cal time, are numbered in current time. 

But, in the last place, the period of 3430 years, or 70 Ju- 
bilees, being computed by me, not from a given point of time 
in the year b. c. 1639 to the same point of time in a. d. 1791, 
which would give only 3429 years, but being reckoned from 
the beginning of the year b. c. 1639, according to Jewish 
style, (that is, from the new moon of the vernal equinox of 
that year,) to the end of the year 1791, Jewish style, is, as- 
tronomically, 3430 complete tropical years, minus the differ- 
ence between the sun and moon at the end of 70 Jubilees, 
which, multiplying the Jubilean epact 115084.7 seconds'* 
by 70, appears, according to the calculation I have now 
made, to be about 4 days, 15 hours, 33 minutes, which tlie 
moon is before the sun, or, in other words, the time of the 
new moon of the vernal equinox will be so much earlier in 
the 3431st year than it was at the beginning of that period, 
and the last year of the 3430 will be so much shorter than a 
complete tropical ^^ear. 

I submit these hasty remarks to the candid consideration of 
Mr Birks himself, hoping that he will see I ha\-e not lost a 



* See p. xvii. 



POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE. 



xxxi 



year^ but that my principles of calculation are completely 
sound. 

The reader will observe, that Mr Birks altogether agrees 
with me as to the length of tlie Jubilee ; and it seems to be 
due to that gentleman himself, that I should add, that he is 
the scientific friend alluded to in a former page.* 

* Page xiv. 

March 20th, 18.35. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface, iii 

Chap. I. Introductory Remarks — Jewish Tradition as to the De- 
struction of the First and Second Temples in a particular year 
of a Shiemittah— Explanation of this Word — The knowledge 
of the Jewish system of Shemittahs essential as a Test of the 
True Chronology of the Scriptures, ..... 

Chap. II. An Inquiry into the exact year of the Destruction of the 

First Temple, . . 8 

Chap. III. On the Chronology of the period from the accession of 
Rehoboam to the death of Ahaziah of Judah and beginning of 
the reign of Queen Athaliah, 18 

Chap. IV. On the Chronology of the period from the first year of 
Queen Athaliah to the death of Josiah, and a Recapitulatory 
View of the whole Scriptural Chronology from the Founda- 
tion of the Temple to its Destruction, 30 

Chap. V. On tlie Chronology of the period from the Exodus to the 
Foundation of the Temple in the fourth year of Solomon, and 
on the true date of the death of Joshua, . . . .40 

Chap. VI. A Comparative View of the true Chronology of the whole 
period from the Exodus to the Destruction of Jerusalem by 
the Romans, and of the Curtailed System of the Jews, with 
an Inquiry into the principles upon which they proceeded in 
curtailing the Chronology, and into the relation of the She- 
mittah, or Sabbatic year, to the true and curtailed Chronolo- 
gies respectively, 64 

TABLES. 

I. Of the Chronology of Israel, from the Exodus to the Founda- 
tion of the Temple, 85 

II. The Chronology of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, from the 
Foundation of the Temple to its Destruction by Nebuchad- 
nezzar, . 87 

III. The Chronology of the Jews, from the Destruction of the First 
Temple by Nebuchadnezzar to the Destruction of the Second 
Temple by the Romans, ....... 89 

APPENDIX. 

I. Remarks on the Jubilean Period, in a Letter to a Friend, . 95 
II. On the Hebrew and Septuagint Chronology of the Postdiluvian 

periods, 97 

III. Remarks on the Vision contained in the First and Second Chap- 

ters of Zechariah, 128 

IV. A Table of Jubilee years continued from Table III. to the year 

of Christ 1841 139 



THE 

CHRONOLOGY 



OF ISRAEL, 



CHAP. I. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS JEWISH TRADITION AS TO THE 

DESTRUCTION OF THE FIRST AND SECOND TEMPLES IN A 

PARTICULAR YEAR OF A SHEMITTAH EXPLANATION OF 

THIS WORD THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE JEWISH SYSTEM OF 

SHEMITTAHS ESSENTIAL AS A TEST OF THE TRUE CHRONO- 
LOGY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

It is now some years since I offered to the public, in two pa- 
pers printed in the Morning Watcli, the idea founded on the 
mystical sense of the number mentioned in Zech. i. 1*2,* that 
a period of 70 Jubilees, or 3430 years, was to measure the 
whole duration of the captivities and dispersions of Israel, 
and that at its expiration, the redemption of that people was 
to take place, and the triumphant kingdom of our Lord to be 
established upon earth. In the second of these papers I sur- 
veyed the Chronology of the Hebrew and Septuagint copies 
of the Old Testament, and entered largely into the evidence 
which supports the authenticity of the Greek text, and the 

* For the interpretation of the whole of that Prophecy of Zechariah, 
see Appendix III. ; and for my view of the mystical meaning of the 70 
years, see the words in capitals in the 4th paragraph of p. 131. 



2 



corruption of the Hebrew genealogies of tlie antediluvian and 
postdiluvian patriarchs, in opposition to the papers of Mr 
CuUimore in the same periodical work. I also, upon the 
authority of the Apostle Paul, and by other irrefragable ar- 
guments, show^ed the spuriousness of the number in 1 Kings 
vi. 1, and endeavoured to establish the authentic Chronology 
of the period from the Exodus to the year of the foundation 
of the temple, to be exactly 611 years, wherein I now believe 
myself to have erred just 1 year, the true length of that in- 
terval being 612 years. 

At the commencement of the present year new light was 
given to me on this subject, which led to the publication of 
a small Work,* wherein it is proved, that the period of 70 
Jubilees, which I had for some years been in search of, com- 
menced at the Exodus in the year b. c. 1639, and expired in 
the year 1791 ; that the year 1792 was that of the 71st Jubi- 
lee, and we are now consequently in the 43d year of the 
71st Jubilee from the Exodus, which, according to the Jew- 
ish style, will end at the new moon of the vernal equinox of 
1835, and therefore, the termination of the Jubilee itself will 
be in 1840. 

Having, in pursuing the same inquiries, since the publica- 
tion of the Work last mentioned, to which I have since added 
another Tract, containing Strictures on a Review of the above 
Work in the Investigator, \ received further insight into the 
great principles of the Scriptural Chronology, and also hav- 
ing arrived at a knowledge of the system of Shemittahs, or 
Sabbatic years, followed by the Jews, and of the principles by 
which they were guided in curtailing their Chronology, I 
deem it right to lay the result of these inquiries before the 
public ; and along with what I have now to offer, I shall re- 

* On the Jubilean Chronology of the Seventh Trumpet of the Apoca- 
lypse, and the Judgment of the Ancient of Days, with a brief account of 
the Discoveries of Mons. de Chesaux, as to the great astronomical Cycles 
of 2300 and 1260 years, and their difference of 1040 years. 

f A Letter to the Editor of the Investigator, being Strictures on his 
Review of the Jubilean Chronology, &c. 



3 



publish my papers in the Morning Watch, so as to place 
within the reach of the reader all that I have written on the 
subject, without the necessity of referring to that voluminous 
work ; and in a discussion so intricate and replete with diffi- 
culties, the most natural order seems to be, to adhere, as much 
as possible, to that in which the various branches of inquiry 
presented themselves to my own mind. 

It was very lately,* that in looking into Dr Ailix's Latin 
Tract, De LXX. Hebdomadibus, (On the Seventy Weeks,) 
addressed to the Jews, my mind was suddenly and most power- 
fully arrested by a remark, that though the Jews differ among 
themselves one year, as to the exact date of the destruction of 
the Second Temple, yet they are all agreed that both tem- 
ples were destroyed in a year following a Shemittah, that is, 
in the year One of a Sabbatic week. In reflecting on this 
subject, I at once saw, that however much they have corrupted 
and mutilated the Chronology of the Scriptures, it was quite 
possible, that a correct tradition might have been handed down 
among them, of such facts as the destruction of the First 
Temple, and also the Second, in a particular year of the 
Septenary ; and further, that if such a tradition did exist, it 
must afford a test of the truth of every system of Scriptural 
Chronology, which no false scheme could endure, seeing that 
the Shemittah or Sabbatic year, occurring in a perpetual re- 
volution of the number 7, could admit of no change or vicis- 
situde, but, like the week of days, is unalterable. I therefore 
saw, that if it were founded on real tradition, that the First 
and Second Temples were both destroyed in years following 
Shemittahs; then, in my own scheme of Jubilean Chronolo- 
gy, which embraces a complete series of weeks of years, from 
the year b, c. 1639, to the present period, the destruction of 
both temples must also occur, if my Chronology be right, in 
years following Shemittahs. 

* It was about the middle of October, 1834, and all the results now 
laid before the public have been arrived at since then. 



4 



Before going further in this inquiry, it is, however, neces- 
sary that I should explain more particularly, for the informa- 
tion of the reader, what the Shemittah is. The Hebrew 
word 71^7211/ Shemittah signifies a release, and was used to 
denote the release of all debts, and the liberation from servi- 
tude of every Hebrew servant at the end of seven years.* 
Hence it came also to signify the year of release, the seventh 
or Sabbatic year, and likewise the whole week of years, be- 
tween one Sabbath and another, in all which senses it is found 
in the Jewish writings, and in the two last senses, namely, as 
signifying the Sabbatic year, and week of years, it is also used 
in these pages. 

Now, as every creditor had a right to exact his debts, and 
every master a right to the services of his Hebrew servant, 
till the Sabbatic year, and no longer ; and, on the other hand, 
as on the arrival of that year, every debtor had a legal right 
to demand a release of his debt, and every Hebrew slave to 
demand his liberty, and his master was commanded not to 
send him away empty, but to furnish him liberally out of his 
flock and his barn-floor, and even his wine-press ;f it was, 
therefore, not less obviously necessary, that there should be 
in Israel, a legal calendar or record of the Shemittah years, 
in order to determine the rights of debtor and creditor, of 
master and servant, and the decisions of judges, than it is 
amongst us that there should be yearly almanacks, containing 
calendars of the legal terms of payment of rents and inter- 
est, and of removal of servants, and all other matters involv- 
ing the rights of individuals, which depend on the revolution 
of time. Accordingly, it is manifest from various passages 
of Scripture, that such calendars of Shemittahs were kept. 
Thus, in Jer. xxxiv. 9, we read of a covenant made by Zede- 
kiah with the princes and people, to let their servants go 
free. This evidently supposes that the time when this cove- 
nant was made was known, and acknowledged to be, a She- 



Deut. XV. ], 12. 



t lb ver. 14. 



5 



mittah.* From Neli. x. 31, it is no less apparent, that, sub- 
sequently to the captivity, the seventh year of release was 
well known, and exactly ascertained. The same may be 
certainly inferred from the tradition already mentioned, re- 
specting the year of the destruction of the Second Temple, 
in a year following a Shemittali. 

It will at once be perceived by the intelligent reader, as 
a necessary consequence of these observations, that if there 
was such a record of Shemittahs, then the true Chronology 
of the church and nation of Israel, must be in entire harmony 
with the series of Shemittahs; or, in other words, that if we 
have found the true Chronology, and can any where in the 
whole series of it, ascertain any one year to be a Shemittah 
or Sabbath, or any given year of the Sabbatic week, whether 
the 1st, or 2d, or 3d, &c. we shall be enabled at once to 
establish the whole series of Shemittahs, in exact harmony 
with the system and genuine tradition of the synagogue. If, 
on the other hand, our scheme of Chronology deviate only 
one year from the exact truth, even should we, before that 
deviation, have discovered the true scheme of Shemittahs, we 
shall, wherever the error of 1 year may occur, lose them, 
without the possibility of regaining them. 

No chronologer, whose works I am acquainted with, has 
attempted to harmonize his scheme with this rule, or to sub- 

* Dr Gill, on Deut. xv. 1, denies that the release of the Sabbatic year 
was one of servants, and affirms it was only of debts ; and that servants 
were not released till the 7th year actual service. This does not affect 
my argument ; for even if the Shemittah was a release of debts only, still 
a record or almanack of Shemittahs was equally necessary for the rights 
of debtor and creditor ; besides which, it was the basis of the Jubilean 
period on which the purchases and sales of land wholly rested. I shall 
observe, however, that Mede, (see his Works, B. I. Discourse xxvi.) takes 
the same view as I do, and says that, in the seventh year, all servants 
were to be released. Indeed, as servants were frequently made so, in sa- 
tisfaction of debts they were unable to pay, it seems difficult to conceive 
how, if the debt was released, they were still held for it. Dr Hales also, 
vol. ii. p. 253, and Home, Introduct. vol. Hi. p. 320, 7th edit, accord with 
me, that the Sabbatic year was one of release from personal slavery. 



6 



mit it to this test, except Usher. He, however, differs from 
the genuine computation of the synagogue, and diverges from 
the truth. I shall give a proof of this from his Annals. He 
evidently saw, from what is contained in Jer. xxxiv. 6 — 11, 
concerning the covenant already mentioned of Zedekiah, and 
the princes and people, to give liberty to their servants, that 
this occurrence must have been in a Sabbatic year. Now, 
according to Usher, the first year's ploughing of the land, 
from whence he dates his Shemittahs, was a. m. 2554, answer- 
ing to the year b. c. 1451,* and, therefore, his 1st Sabbatic 
year was b. c. 1445. Computing downwards from that year, 
we arrive at b. c. 591, as his 122d Sabbath or Shemittah, 
which was the 8th year of the captivity of Jehoiachin or 
Jeconiah, and of the reign of Zedekiah. But, in the genu- 
ine Chronology, as will be proved afterwards, the year b. c. 
590, and not 591, was the Sabbath; and, accordingly, it was 
in that year, being the 9th of Zedekiah, that Nebuchadnez- 
zar with his army invaded Judea, and sat down before Jeru- 
salem.f In this year, therefore, and at the time when the 
people were filled with alarm from the approach of the Baby- 
lonian army, Prideaux, with perfect accuracy, places the 
covenant mentioned by Jeremiah. On the other hand, the 
scheme of Usher, for the reason above stated, makes it fall 
out in the year b. c. 591, being the 8th year of the captivity 

* In the columns of Usher's Annals it is printed b. c. 1450 ; but as his 
year 1 of the world is b. c. 4004, therefore, it will be found that his year 
of the world 2554 comes out b. c. 14^1 ; accordingly, he places his first 
Jubilee in a. m. 2609, and b. c. 1396. Now, from a. m. 2554 to 2609, are 
55 years, and from b, c. 14^1 to 1396, are also 55 years, therefore, Usher's 
scheme requires the first year's ploughingto be in b. c. 14^1. But, in his 
Tables, there is a perpetual oscillation of 1 year more or less in the years 
before Christ. The creation, we have already seen, he places b. c. 4004, 
therefore, the year b. c. 1 answers to 4004 of creation ; and yet he makes 
the year of creation 4004 not parallel with b. c. 1, but with After Christ 1. 
Thus it is plain, that he somewhere loses or drops a year in the series of 
the years before Christ. The learned and excellent primate was certainly 
no arithmetician. 

t 2 Kings XXV. 1. Jer. xxxix. 1. lii. 4. 



7 



of Jeconiali. It is true Ins words in this passage of Ins An- 
nals are ambiguous, and it did appear to me at first view, that 
his expression, " This fell out to he a Sabbatical year" refers 
properly to " the 1th year of Jeconiah and his captivity'^ in a 
former paragraph,* which would have made the year b. c. 
592 the Sabbath ; but as Usher's scheme brings it out the 
year after, or b. c. 591, it seems probable that I misconceived 
his meaning. I must however add, that 1 suspect Usher was 
himself puzzled in this place to make out the Sabbath con- 
sistently, both with his own scheme of the Shemittahs and 
his date of the siege and destruction of the Temple, and has, 
in order to conceal his embarrassment, expressed himself with 
studied ambiguity. He is, at any rate, 1 year wide of the 
true Shemittah. 

In closing this chapter, I shall inform the reader that it is 
to the above-mentioned test that I propose in this Work to 
submit the whole series of my Jubilean Chronology in the 
most rigid manner ; but, in preparing to do this, I have dis- 
covered that it requires certain corrections in no degree 
affecting its great outlines. 

* Usher, Annals, p. 89. The year, according to the frequent practice 
of the learned author, is here left blank in the columns of years, a cir- 
cumstance which often renders it very difficult to arrive at the real Chro- 
nology of Usher. 



CHAP. H. 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE EXACT YEAR OF THE DESTRUCTION 
OF THE FIRST TEMPLE. 

In entering upon the inquiry proposed at the end of the for- 
mer chapter, I found that the first point which presented it- 
self to my mind, as demanding more thorough investigation, 
was the difference of opinion among former Chronologers, as 
to the date of the destruction of the First Temple. This 
event is placed by Usher and Prideaux in the year b. c. 588, 
while, by Dr Hales and Dr Russell, it is brought two years 
lower, to B. c. 586. From the date of this event, downwards, 
there is, I believe, no discrepancy as to the outlines of the 
general Chronology of the World, so far, at least, as it is 
connected with that of the church of God, and scarcely any 
difference of moment as to its details, among our leading 
writers. But as it is at the captivity of Judah in Babylon, 
that the Chronology of History first comes into contact with 
that of Prophecy, and as it is upon the date of the destruc- 
tion of the First Temple that the true Chronology of the 
Scriptures, for that, as well as the immediately preceding 
ages, especially hangs, it is of the utmost consequence to de- 
termine this date with certainty, and it has pleased God to 
furnish us with the means of doing so, with a precision, which 
places it beyond the possibility of rational doubt. 

In my former papers, and my Jubilean Chronology, I had 
upon this point followed Hales ; and the whole period from 
the Exodus to the Christian era, was, in the work last men- 
tioned, arranged as follows : — 



9 



Years 

Exodus, 

Thence to the Foundation of the Temple, . 6 12 

Destruction of . 441 

Christian era, .... 586 

Total length of period from Exodus ) \Q39 
to 1st year of Christ, . . ) 

While I was quite conscious that I had not heretofore acqui- 
esced, in the date assigned to the destruction of the Temple, 
by the above learned Chronologist, without consideration and 
inquiry, (for in fact I had bestowed no little pains upon 
the question,) yet I now felt that it would be necessary for 
me to enter anew, and in a more fundamental manner than I 
had formerly done, into the investigation of the whole Chro- 
nology of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, in order that I might 
with, absolute certainty determine between Prideaux and Dr 
Hales, and place this part of my own system upon a perfectly 
firm basis. I shall proceed to lay before the reader the result 
of this inquiry, which, though I am enabled to condense it 
w^ithin a narrow space, cost me intense labour, as well in 
getting possession of its elements, as in applying them to the 
history of that period.* 

* This remark, and a similar one near the end of this chapter, are forced 
from me in consequence of certain charges brought against me by the 
Editor of the Investigator in his Number for December last, the substance 
of which is, — that I am grossly partial in the selection of evidence, speak- 
ing of Prideaux when he is against me as if his knowledge of Chronology 
were very inferior, and at the very next moment bringing him forward to 
correct the Chronology of Dr Hales. My answer to these charges is, that 
I have not questioned Prideaux's knowledge of Chronology. What I have 
questioned is his competency to decide points of which he himself pro- 
nounces the knowledge to be useless, namely, the length of the Jubilee 
and the arrangement of the Sabbatical years ; and I have yet to learn what 
ground we have to confide in the judgment of any man, however illustri- 
ous otherwise, as to that branch of revealed truth which he himself pro- 
nounces to be useless. 

If I rightly understand the Reviewer in the second part of his charge, 
he means to insinuate that I determine the point of Chronology which 
respects the date of the destruction of the First Temple, simply on the 

B 



Years before 
Christ. 

1639 

1027 

586 



10 



We are informed in 2 Kings xxiv. 12, tliat in the 8tli year 
of Nebuchadnezzar, Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah of Judah, deli- 
vered himself up to that monarch, who was then besieging 
Jerusalem; and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, that when the year 
was expired. King Nebuchadnezzar sent him to Babylon and 
made Zedekiah king in his stead. It is from this captivity 
of Jehoiachin that the years of the captivity of Judah are 
computed in the book of Ezekiel. The words of ch. i. 1, 2., 
In the fourth months in the fifth day of the months which was 
the fifth year of king Jehoiachin' s captivity, determine this 
beyond the possibility of question, and they also fix the sense 
of the numbers in ch. viii. 1., xx. 1., xxiv. 1., and xxxiii. 21., 
and other passages, only that in the last text, the authentic 
reading, as supported by sundry Hebrew copies and the Sy- 
riac, is the 11th and not the 12th year of the captivity. 

In the next place, we learn by comparing 2 Kings xxv. 1. 
with Ezek. xxiv. 1. that the years of the captivity of Jehoia- 
chin (or Jeconiah) are exactly parallel with the years of the 
reign of Zedekiah. Both were computed from the same point 
of time, viz. the 1st of Nisan next following the delivering 
himself up of Jehoiachin, which must, from the expression in 
2 Chron. xxxvi. 10. already quoted, have been some months 
before the end of the preceding year. 

It is from the years of the captivity of Jehoiachin and of 
the reign of Zedekiah, compared with the astronomical canon 
of Ptolemy, and both again compared with the Scriptural ac- 
count of the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, that we are 
enabled to fix, with the most absolute certainty, the Chrono- 
logy of the whole of this period of Scriptural history ; and we 

auiliority of Prideaux. Now, the reader will be able to form an impar- 
tial judgment as to the truth of this charge after considering the reasoning 
and the evidence contained in this chapter. What are my obligations 
both to Prideaux and Hales I have fairly acknowledged, but in deciding 
the difference between them I have rested my conclusions on the evidence 
only. In both particulars the charges of the Reviewer are untrue. I will 
just add, that the tone and spirit of the whole article are not very becom- 
ing in a person who, as a writer on Prophecy, is of only three or four 
years' standing. 



11 



cannot sufficiently admire the wisdom and goodness of God, in 
having given to his Church, a record of such importance, as 
that of tlie years of this captivity. 

We are informed in 2 Kings xxv. 27, that in the 37 th year 
of the captivity of Jehoiachin, in the 12th month and 27th day 
of the month, Evil-merodach, the successor of Nebuchadnez- 
zar in the kingdom of Babylon, did, in the 1st year of his 
reign, release Jehoiachin from prison. This is also confirmed 
in the 52d chapter of Jeremiah, with a difference only of two 
days, — Jeremiah stating it to have been on the 25th, instead 
of the 27 th of the month, and it might take the two days, 
from the issuing of the royal order, before Jehoiachin was in 
a condition to appear in the presence of the king. 

The 1st year of Evil-merodach is, by the astronomical 
canon of Ptolemy, pinned down to the year of Nabonassar 
187, answering to the year b. c. 561,* beginning at the 1st 
of the Chaldee month Thoth, which fell that year on the 11th 
January.f On the other hand, the Jewish year, by which 
was computed the captivity of Jehoiachin, began on the 1st 
of NisaUy being the new moon nearest to the vernal equinox. 
Now the 37 til year of the captivity, in the 12th month of 
wdiich Jehoiachin w^as released, could not be the year com- 
mencing at Nisan of the year b. c. 561, for then its 12th 
month would have been not in the same year, but in the fol- 
lowing year b. c. 560, being the 2d of Evil-merodach. It 
was, therefore, most indubitably the year which began in 
March, b. c. 562, and ended in March, b. c. 561. 
. This enables us to fix with the most positive certainty, that 
the death of Nebuchadnezzar took place between the 1st of 
Thoth, (11th January) b. c. 561, and the new moon of the 
vernal equinox of that year ; for, according to the 2d rule of 
Ptolemy's canon, each king's reign is computed from the 1st 
of Thoth before his accession, and the odd months of the last 
year of his reign are included in the first year of his successor. % 



* Dr Hales, vol. i. p. 163, 2d edition. f Ibid. vol. i. p. 157. 
:|: Ibid. vol. i. p. 171. 



12 



If, then, Nebuchadnezzar had died sooner than the 1st of Thoth, 
or 11th January, b. c. 561, that year would have been not 
the 1st, but the 2d of Evil-merodach, whose reign would 
have been dated from b. c. 562. 

It being thus established, that the 37th year of Jelioiachin's 
captivity was that which began in March, b. c. 562, and 
ended in March, 561, and that nearly ten months of that 
year were run out before the death of Nebuchadnezzar, we 
must next count back from b. c. 562, thirty-seven current 
years, and we arrive at the year b. c. 598, as the 1st year of 
the captivity of Jehoiachin, and also of Zedekiah's reign; and 
again counting downwards from b. c. 598, the eleven current 
years of Zedekiah, we arrive at the year b. c. 588, as the 
11th year of his reign, on the 9th day of the 4th month of 
which, or towards the end of June, the city was taken, and 
in the 5th month, or towards the end of July, the temple and 
city were burnt by Nebuzaradan. 

In the next place, as it was in the 19th year of the reign 
of Nebuchadnezzar, (2 Kings xxv. 8,) that these events 
happened, we must, in order to arrive at the 1st year of that 
prince, compute nineteen current years back from b. c. 588, 
and we arrive at the year b. c. 606, as the Scriptural date of 
the commencement of his reign, being two years earlier than 
is fixed in the canon of Ptolemy, and the difference is ac- 
counted for in the manner mentioned by Prideaux, and con- 
firmed incidentally by Josephus,* viz. that Nebuchadnezzar 
reigned two years conjunctly with his father Nabopolassar, 
and that Ptolemy gives the year of his accession to the undi- 
vided sovereignty, viz. b. c. 604, while the Scriptures give 
that of his being called to reign conjunctly with his father. 

The year, b. c. 606, was also the 4th of Jehoiakim, and it 
is the date of the captivity of that prince, and also of the 
seventy years' captivity. The Jewish year began late in 
March, but the Chaldee year, b. c. 606, began on January 
22d f of that Julian year ; if, then, Nebuchadnezzar sat down 

* See bis book against Apion, Whiston's Joseplnis, vol. iv. p. 297. 
f Hales, vol. i. p. 157. 



13 



with his army before Jerusalem, a month or two before Nisan, 
it was in the 3d year of Jehoiakim, and this appears to re- 
concile Dan. i. 1, which says, the siege began in the 3d of 
Jehoiakim, with Jer. xxv. 1, which places it in the 4th; for 
it thus appears that the two last months of the 3d of Jehoia- 
kim coincided with the two first months of the 1st year of 
Nebuchadnezzar. Following up the calculation, we arrive at 
the year b. c. 609 as the 1st of Jehoiakim, and the year b. c. 
610 as that of the death of Josiah. 

It appears then from the whole of the foregoing reasoning, 
that the date assigned by Dr Prideaux, as the year of the de- 
struction of the First Temple, is demonstrably true, while the 
year b. c. 586, fixed for that event by Drs Hales and Rus- 
sell, is no less demonstrably vvTong. It is right that I should 
here inform the reader, that the data on which this reasoning 
is founded, are, with two important exceptions, to be found in 
the pages of Prideaux, although he has not, perhaps, every 
where stated his arguments with the perspicuity that so diffi- 
cult a subject demands. The exceptions, now alluded to, 
are the principles upon which Ptolemy began and ended the 
computation of each king's reign, and the tables necessary 
for fixing the beginning of the Chaldee years of Nabonassar. 
For both of these I am indebted to Hales, and without them 
I should have been altogether unable, from the data supplied 
by Prideaux, to arrive at the solution of this question of 
Chronology. The result of this inquiry into the date of the 
destruction of the First Temple is exhibited in the table at the 
end of this chapter, which will be found exactly to accord with 
that of Dr Prideaux for the same period. It was, however, 
not copied from the table of that learned writer, but was con- 
structed by myself upon the principles of the foregoing rea- 
soning. Indeed it cost me considerably more than a week's 
severe labour and research, to get possession of the elements 
of these calculations ; I then began by laying down the 37th 
of the captivity of Jehoiachin, and counted back from it in 
the manner already mentioned. The exact accordance of this 
table with that of Dr Prideaux, must therefore be viewed by 



14 



impartial and intelligent readers as being strong presumptive 
evidence of its truth. 

Before quitting tins part of my subject, I shall observe, 
that Dr Hales, in his Chronology of the reign of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, appears to me to be no less confused and inconsistent 
with himself, and even unintelligible, than he is opposed to 
the Scriptures. lie places the captivity of Jehoialdm in the 
beginning of the year b. c. 605, and he thence dates the 70 
years.* But as the Scriptures tell us, (Jer. xxv. 1.) that it 
was in the 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar that the denunciation 
of the captivity was uttered, and from Dan. i. 1, it appears 
that it was executed the same year : if this year was, as Dr 
Hales thinks, b. c. 605, then the 19th year of Nebuchadnez- 
zar, w^iich was also the 11th of Zedekiah, (2 Kings xxv. 8.) 
is brought out on this hypothesis in b. c. 587, whereas Dr 
Hales's date of the destruction of the Temple requires the 
year b. c. 586, to be the 19th of Nebuchadnezzar. 

The learned Chronologist fixes also the 1 st year of Jehoiakim 
in the year b. c. 608, f and he dates his reign from the month 
of July.f Consequently, from July, b. c. 608, to July, b. c. 
604, are 4 years complete ; and, therefore, the 4th year of 
Jehoiakim began, according to Dr Hales, in July, b. c. 605, 
and ended in July, 604, On the other hand, in order to ac- 
commodate the years of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to his 
own spurious date of the destruction of the Temple, he as- 
sumes Ptolemy's date of the undivided reign of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, viz. 21st January, b. c. 604, as the true Scriptural 
date of his reign, and consequently makes his 19th year, 
mentioned in 2 Kings xxv. 8, to be in b. c. 586. § Yet almost 
in the same breath, he says, that the Jirst year of Nebuchadnez- 
zar was partly the third, and partly the fourth of Jehoiakim. || 
But we have previously seen, that, according to his Chronolo- 
gy, the fourth of Jehoiakim began in July, b. c. 605. But if so, 
how could Nebuchadnezzar's first year, which began 6 months 

* Hales, vol. i. p. 166, vol. ii. p. 439, 40. 
f Ibid. vol. ii. p. xxxvi. and 372. X Vol. ii. p. 439. 

^ Ibid. p. 439, 447. || P. 439. 



15 



later^ or in January, b. c. 604, be partly in Jehoiakim's third 
year ? On Dr Hales's scheme it is, on the contrary, mani- 
fest, that it was partly in the fourth^ and partly in fifth 
of Jehoiakim. 

It appears, therefore, that with respect to the true date of 
the 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar, Dr Hales contradicts him- 
self. Further, in computing the captivity of Jehoiakim from 
the beginning of the year b. c. 605, whereas he dates the 
commencement of the reio;n of Nebuchadnezzar from Janu- 
ary, b. c. 604, he doesj in effect, maintain, in the very 
teeth of Jer. xxv. 1, and Dan. i. 1, that Nebuchadnezzar took 
Jehoiakim captive before he himself began to reign. Again, 
by confounding the Scriptural date of Nebuchadnezzar's reign 
with that of Ptolemy, and computing his 19th year from the 
last instead of the former, the learned writer plunges his 
Chronology of this reign into a mass of contradictions and 
confusion. 

Finally, so far is it from being true, as Dr Hales asserts in 
the 3d of his Rules for Chronologizing,* that by the applica- 
tion of the only authentic date of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, as 
verified by Ptolemy's scientific canon, the " hypothesis of a 
double commencement of his reign during his father's life, and 
after his death, is discarded ;" that, on the contrary, it is evi- 
dent, that Dr Hales himself is forced in reality, though not in 
words, to admit such a double commencement of his reign, 
since he elsewhere expressly dates the expedition of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, during which he took Jerusalem, " before his fa- 
ther, Nabopolassar's death." f 



* Vol. i. p. 270. 



t Vol. ii. p. 440. 



16 



A T A Ji L i: 



()i lIic Chronolo;^y oi' llic Scrif>tiirf'S from tlif; doatli ofJoiiali lo accession of I^il- 
rnoodacli, king of Jiahylori. 



Yftars 
















b«;for« 






Vi-arH of th« KinifH 






Veari of captivity 
hi ISabylori. 


Ciiriiit;. 


y«ar8 ol the Kingfl of Judah. 


Babylon 








fiJO 


Doath of Josiah : Jchoahaz roif^ns 53 


Nabopola«8ar. 


10 


% 










rnoritliH & 10 dayn. 






S 








.J(;lioi;ikiifi, J 






17 
















18 


(-! 
«J 

N 




''.Jfthoiakim 






007 




fjorimlorn taken 
1 l,y Nr;biifhad- 


Nefjuchad- ~) 


10 


0^ 

c 




til*'. wrviiUt 
ofN»'hiJctia<l- 
lu'zzftr. 






oof; 


4 


-j nf;7,zar, and 


nezzarwith > 


I 


a 




Kiri;<« xxiv. 






00.'> 




1 J<;l)oi;ikirn Kub- 
[ jnit-i to hi)n. 


\m father. 3 
J)(jath of Na- ) 


2 


s 




1. in vvtii(^li 
fv«nttlnM;!ip- 
tivity i)o,(f\riH. 




2 


ii 


])()[)()\;iMHiir. ) 






Jcr. XXV. J J., 






004 




^ J<;hoiakirn rc- 


Nfihuchad- ) 










0 




nezzar alone ^ 


3 


1 




.3 


OO.'i 


7 




4 


2 




4 


602 


8 






5 


3 




6 


00 1 


0 


Years of captivity 




6 


4 




0 


000 


10 




7 


o 




7 


I'm 


^ Arifl .Ic;f;oriial) / ^ j 
/ .'i rnonth.s. ^ 


of Jclioiacfiin, 
and of captivity 




8 


6 




8 




in JCzokicl. 














Zo.l(;ki;j.li, J 


^ (/Jiptivity of ( J 
^ .Icconial). ^ 




9 


7 




9 




2 


2 




JO 


8 




10 


/jOO 








1 1 


9 




11 


/30;> 


4 


4 




12 


10 




12 


/ifM 




Sec JC/ck. i. 2. 5 




13 


1 1 




13 




0 


viii. 1. 0 




J4 


12 




14 




7 


XX. i. 7 




15 


13 




15 


50 J 


8 


8 




10 


14 




16 


500 


U 


J'l/(;k,xxiv. J,2. 0 




17 


15 




17 


580 


10 


10 

TKzok.xxxiii ^ 




18 


16 




18 




f City and l.<;rn- i 
^ pU; destroy- [ 1 1 
C ed. ) 


1 21, where 1 










19 




-j tl)ej,'enuino [ 1 1 
read in j( is j 




19 


17 




r,Hi 




[ inthelJth.J 




20 


18 




20 


580 




l.'i 




21 


1 9 




21 


585 




14 




22 


20 




22 


584 




16 




23 


21 




23 


68;i 




16 




24 


22 




24 


582 




17 




25 


23 




25 


581 




18 




20 


24 




20 


680 




19 




27 


25 




27 


570 




20 




28 


20 






578 




21 




20 


27 




20 


bll 




22 




30 


28 




30 


570 




23 




31 


29 




31 


575 




24 




32 


30 




32 


674 




25 




iiti 


31 




.'W 


573 




26 




34 


32 




34 


672 




27 




35 


33 




35 


671 




28 




30 


34 




.30 



17 



Years 
Before 
Christ. 



670 

669 
568 
667 
666 
666 
664 
663 



662 



661 



Years of captivity of 
Jehoiachin. 



t Captivity of Je- 
( coniah. 



The 37th year of 
THE Captivity of 
Jeconiah, being 
THE Key to the 
Chronology of 

THIS period, was 
LAID DOWN FIRST 
IN THE CONSTRUC- 
TION OF THIS TA- 
BLE. It BEGAN 
AT THE NEW MOON 

OF THE Vernal 
Equinox, b. c. 
662, and ended 
at the same new 

MOON, B. C. 661. 

On 25th of Adar, 
or in March; 6 days 
before the Jewish 
year, b. c. 662, 
expired, Jeconiah 
was released from 
prison; and, on the 
27th of the month 
Adar, he stood 
before Evil-mero- 
dach. Jer. lii. 31 
—34 : 2 Kings 
XXV. 27 — 30. 



37 



Years of the Kings 
of Babylon. 


From his 
jointreign 
with his 
father. 


From 
his reign 
alone. 


Years of 
captivity in 
Babylon. 


Nebuchadnezzar. 


37 


36 




37 




38 


86 




38 




39 


37 




39 




40 


38 




40 




41 


39 




41 




42 


40 




42 




43 


41 




43 




44 


42 




44 




45 


43 




46 


Nebuchadnezzar 










dies between 1st 










Thoth, or Jan- 










uary 11th, and 
the 26th Adar 










of the sameJew- 










ish year, and is 
succeeded bv 










Evil-merodach. 




1 




46 



c 



CHAP. III. 



ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION 
OF REHOBOAM TO THE DEATH OF AHAZIAH OF JUDAH AND 
BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF QUEEN ATHALIAH. 2 KINGS 
XI. 1. 

Having in tlie preceding cliapter proved that there is an er- 
ror in the Chronology of Dr Hales, as to the date of the de- 
struction of the First Temple, it necessarily follows, unless 
there be some countervailing error to balance it, that his 
whole Chronology prior to the year b. c. 586 must be carried 
back 2 years, and, therefore, that the foundation of the 
Temple must be placed in b. c. 1029 instead of 1027. The 
effect upon my own scheme of Jubilean Chronology would 
also be, that the termination of the 70 Jubilees must be placed 
in the year of Christ 1789 instead of 1791. 

Now, it will be seen, by a reference to my second Paper in 
the Morning Watch, Appendix, No. II,* that T then conceiv- 
ed Dr Hales to have erred just 2 years in the length of the 
reign of Jehoram of Judah, which Usher and Lightfoot make 
only 4 complete years, but Dr Hales makes 8 years, and 
which I then conceived to be 6 years. At the time of the 
publication of my Jubilean Chronology, I indeed satisfied 
myself, by what I considered at the time to be a careful exa- 
mination of the calculations of Dr Hales in his 2d vol. p. 373, 
and the arguments by which he confirms them, that I was 
mistaken upon this point ; but the discovery of his error of 2 
years, in the date of the destruction of the First Temple, 
had the effect of reviving my former suspicions, as to an error 



* See Sect. v. 7. of that Paper. 



19 



of equal amount, in the length of the reign of Jehoram of 
Judah. I determined, therefore, to enter into a rigid investi- 
gation of his whole Chronology, for the period of the kings of 
Judah and Israel, beginning at the accession of Rehoboam, 
and ending at the captivity of the Ten Tribes, in order to 
arrive, if possible, at entire certainty upon every part of it. 

This period subdivides itself into three parts, since, as Dr 
Hales rightly observes, the two series of reigns agree in three 
points of time. 1st, The reigns of Rehoboam and Jeroboam 
began in the same year. 2d, The reigns of Queen Athaliah 
and Jehu, who slew Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Israel, 
began in the same day. 3d, Samaria was taken by the As- 
syrians, in the 9tli year of the reign of Hoshea of Israel, and 
the 6th of Hezekiah of Judah. It is with respect to the first 
and second parts of this period, that Chronologers have expe- 
rienced the greatest difficulties. I shall in this chapter begin 
by offering an analysis of the first part, and then give the 
reasons, which may seem necessary to vindicate my arrange- 
ment of the reigns, and my departure from the schemes of 
former Chronographers, where I differ from them. 

Let me also here mention, for the satisfaction of the reader, 
that the investigation, of which the result is now laid before 
him, was conducted in a different manner from my former 
inquiries. I formerly considered the arguments of Dr Hales, 
with the Bible in my hands. But now laying aside Dr Hales, 
I opened the books of Kings and Chronicles, and from them 
I strictly analyzed the years of each reign, arranging them in 
the Table as I proceeded, till I arrived at the final result ; and 
I am now convinced, that this is the only certain way, of in- 
vestigating a subject so intricate, as that of the Chronology of 
the Books of Kinpfs. 



20 



TABLE 



Of the reigns of the Kings of Jadah and Israel, from the first year of 
Rehoboam of Judah to the end of the reign of Ahaziah of Judah. 



Kings of Judah. 


KiNGs OF Israel. 


Years of 
ReigDS of 
Cotera- 
porary 
Kings of 
Israel. 


Years of 
Reigns of 
Kings of 
Judah. 


Total 
Years of 
Period. 


Rehoboam, 1 > 17 
Kings xiv. 21. ) years. 


Jeroboam, 1 J) 
Kings xii. 20. > 
xiv. 20. ) y^^^'^' 


17 


17 


17 


Abijah reign- 1 
ed in 18th of | g 
Jeroboam, 1 )y 
Kingsxv.],2.p^^^^' 
2Chr.xiii.l,2.J 


Jeroboam. 


20 


3 


20 


Asa reigned in 20th of 
Jeroboam, 1 Kings xv. 
9, 10. But his reign 
is computed from the 
21st of Jeroboam, and 
comprehended his 21st 
and 22d years ; for 
Nadab, who succeeded 
Jeroboam on his death, 
1 Kings xiv. 20, be- 
gan to reign in the 2d 
of Asa, and in his 3d 
was slain. 

Asa's reign was 41 years. 


Jeroboam. 

JBaasha reigned 24 
years current from the 
3d of Asa to his 26th, 
1 Kings XV. 28, and 
xvi. 8, they are there- 
fore 26—3=23 com- 
plete years. 

Eta reigned in 26th of 
Asa, and was slain in 
27th, 1 Kings xvi. 8, 
10. 


22 
1 

23 
1 


2 
3 

26 
27 


22 
23 

46 
47 




Zimri and Omri, from 
27th of Asa, 1 Kings 
xvi. 15, to 37th, since 
Ahab's reign began 
in 38th of Asa, xvi. 29. 
Therefore the reign of 
Zimri and Omri was 
12 years current, but 
10 complete. 

See Dr Gill on 1 Kings 
xvi. 23. 


10 


37 


57 




Ahab reigned in 38th 
of Asa, 1 Kings xvi. 
29, and to his 41st. 


4 


41 


61 


Jehoshaphat reigned 
25 years, of which 18 
were from 5th year of 
Ahab to his 22d in- 
clusive, Ahab's 4th 
year, when Jehosha- 











21 



Kl.VGS OF JCDAH. 



KixGS OF Israel. 



Years of. 

Rpi&'iis of Years of ^ . 
Cofera- Reigns of , 
porary Kin?s orV^':= 
Kings of Judah. [ 



Israel. 



phat began to reign, 
being counted the 41st 
of Asa. 

1 Kings xxii. 41, 42. [Ahab. 



Jehoram is said to 
have reigned 8 years 
from the 5th of Joram 
of Israel, (which was 
also the 25th of Je- 
hoshaphat,) 2 Kings 
viii. 16, 17. to the 12th 
of Joram, see v. 25. 
This makes 8 years 
current, but the 1st 
being counted to the 
reign of Jehoshaphat, 
and the last to that of 
Ahaziah, his reign is 
reduced to 6 years com- 
plete, being all in the 
reign of Joram. 

Ahaziah, 2 Kinss viii. 



Ahaziah reigned on 
the death of Ahab, 1 
Kings xxii. 40, but the 
reading in v. 51. of the 
same chapter is cor- 
rupted, of which proof 
will be given after- 
wards. The 2 years 
of Ahaziah are the 
19tli and 20th of Je- 
hoshaphat. 

Jehoram or Joram 
was cotemporary with 
Jehoshaphat from his 
21st to his 25th year : 
for Jehoram of Judah 
succeeded his father 
Jehoshaphat in the 5th 
of Joram, 2 Kings viii. 
16. Therefore 2 Kings 
iii. 1. has been corrupt- 
ed, the 2 1st of Jehosha- 
phat being plainly the 
1st year of Joram of 
Israel. Proof of this 
will be given after- 
w-ards. 



Joram, 



Joram. 



22 



11 



12 



18 



20 



81 



25 



86 



92 

93 



22 



It will be seen, that in the foregoing Table I have again 
reduced the reign of Jehoram of Judah to 6 years complete, 
(as in the Appendix, II. § v. 7.), instead of 8 years, and for 
my justification in so doing I observe, that it is absolutely 
necessary, in order to harmonize the Scriptures with them- 
selves. It cannot be denied, that, in adjusting the Chronology 
of the last part of this period, we have only to choose between 
opposing difficulties. Thus the first 4 years of Ahab were 
contemporaneous with the last 4 of Asa — and Ahab reigned 
22 years. He must then have reigned 18 with Jehoshaphat. 
Yet Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, is, according to our present 
Hebrew text, made to reign in the 1 7th of Jehoshaphat, and 
Joram, the brother and successor of Ahaziah, in the 18th of 
Jehoshaphat, which would reduce the reign of Ahab to 21 
years current or 20 complete, and would also reduce the reign 
of Jehoram himself from 6 years, which I make it, to 4 years, 
which is the space given to it, as has been already said, by 
Usher and Lightfoot. In supposing, therefore, as I do, that 
there is an error in the number now existing in I Kings xxii. 
51., whereby Ahaziah is said to have begun to reign in the 
17th of Jehoshaphat, and for a like reason also in the number 
now found in 2 Kings iii. 1., I violate the integrity of the 
Hebrew text far less, as will be shown below, than any other 
of our v/riters on Chronology, and merely yield to the neces- 
sity of the case. I shall just add a remark, that as the Jew^s, 
in the Seder Olam Rabha^ have reduced the reign of Jehosha- 
phat to 23 years, they have probably altered these two texts 
to establish this scheme. 

The difficulty which our leading Chronographers have ex- 
perienced in harmonizing the foregoing reigns of Judah and 
Israel, will be seen by a short review of their systems. — Dr 
Lightfoot puts the whole of the Scriptures as to this period 
to the torture. In utter defiance of the testimony of 1 Kings 
xiv. 20., that Jeroboam slept with his fathers^ and Nadah his 
son reigned in his steady he makes Nadab reign 2 years with 
his father, and makes their reigns end together. By a similar 
process he makes Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, mount the throne 



•23 



in the •20tli of Aliabj and die in tlie 2ist, that is, before his 
father; thus rejecting or wTesting the testimony of 1 Kings 
xxii. 40., already mentioned, that Ahah slept with his fathers, 
and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead. By these and 
other devices, the learned Doctor shortens the Chronology 
from Rehoboam to Athaliah to 89 years. 

Archbishop Usher makes it 9 1 years, and this he effects by 
reducing the reign of Jehoram of Judah to 4 years, suppos- 
ing him to reign other 4 years along with his father, Jehosha- 
phat; and, in order to harmonize the reigns of the kings of 
Israel with this shortened Chronology, he makes the 2*2 years 
of Jeroboam fill a period only of 20 years, from b. c. 974 to 
954, and he also annihilates the reign of Ahaziah, son of Ahab, 
by making him, in direct contradiction to the text already 
quoted, reign with his father during his life, instead of suc- 
ceeding him after his death. 

Both these learned persons adopt their schemes, in defer-, 
ence to the reading of the numbers, in the present Hebrew 
texts, of 1 Kings xxii. 51. and 2 Kings iii. 1., which I have 
given reasons for belie^dng not to be genuine, and I shall as- 
sign stronger reasons below. But certainly, it is a much 
smaller violation, of the authority of the present text of our 
Bibles, to suppose, that in one or two passages, the nimiber 
seventeen has been introduced for nineteen, and eighteen for 
twenty or ticenty-one, than to contradict and ^west, as these 
writers do, texts of clear and simple signification, telling us 
of the death of one king, and his son reigning in his stead, 
and to make them signify the direct contrary, viz. that the 
son reigned along Tvith the father. 

Dr Hales, on the other hand, as already said, computes 
the reign of Jehoram of Judah to be 8 complete years, and 
he thus makes the whole period now under review to be 95 
years. In order to harmonize with this the cotemporary 
reigns of the kings of Israel, he makes Nadab reign 2 years 
complete, against the express testimony of 1 Kings xv. 25 — 
28. He also makes the reigns of Zimri and Omri 11 years 
complete. But as the 27th year of Asa belongs to the reign 



24 



of Ela of Israel, and tlie 38tli of Asa is the 1st of Aliab, in 
the 4th year of whose reign was the accession of Jehoshaphat, 
it follows, that though Zimri and Omri reigned 12 years cur- 
rent, from 2 7 til to 38th of Asa, which seems to be the signifi- 
cation of 1 Kings xvi. 23., yet their reign must be limited 
to 10 years complete ; and in confirmation of this, let it be 
noted, that Dr Hales, in order to justify this part of his 
scheme, brings down the accession of Ahab to the 40th of 
Asa, against the express testimony of 1 Kings xvi. 29., and 
for this end he alters the reading of that text and also of 1 
Kings xxii. 41. and 2 Kings viii. 16.; that is, to make the 
reign of Jehoram of Judah 8 years complete, requires the al- 
teration of our Hebrew copies, not only in two places, where 
I have already in part shown that they require correction, 
and in one other place, which I am about to state, (with re- 
spect to the corruption of which three passages, I have also 
the concurrence of Dr Hales,) but it requires the alteration 
of no less than six texts of the Books of Kings. By cutting 
off the 2 superfluous years of Jehoram, and reducing his 
reign from 8 years current to 6 complete, I therefore vindi- 
cate the integrity of not less than three, out of six places 
which Dr Hales alters, and, according to every legitimate 
principle of investigation and reverence for the sacred text, 
from which nothing but the most rigid necessity, for the de- 
fence of the truth of the Scripture, can justify our depart- 
ing in any one instance, we must conclude that Dr Hales has 
here erred. It will be shown in a subsequent chapter, that 
there are other reasons drawn from its harmony with the 
Shemittahs, or Sabbatic years, which prove, with the most 
absolute certainty, that the scheme which I have adopted is 
the true Chronology of this period. 

I shall now add, that since the above scheme was com- 
pleted it has received a most unexpected confirmation from a 
reading in the Aldine Edition of the Seventy, of the existence 
of which I was not aware till after I had written the para- 
graph in p. 22, as to the Jews having altered two texts in the 
Books of Kings. But as I have already alluded to a third 



•25 



text which bears the marks of having been corrupted, I shall 
now mention that it is the last sentence of 2 Kings i. 17., viz. 
" Jehoram^ reigned in his (Ahaziah's) steady in the second 

YEAR OF JeHORAM, SON OF JeHOSHAPHAT KING OF JuDAH, 

because he had no son.'' Now, that the words in capitals had 
no existence in the original text appears for the following- 
reasons: Istj Josephus gives the substance of it, if I may 
trust the accuracy of Whiston's translation, as follows : But 
Jehoram his brother succeeded him in the kingdom^ because 
he died without children.^ 2dly, Some copies of the Seventy, 
as I learn from the notes in my copy of the x\ldine edition, 
(Frankfort, 1597.) omit the whole of the last clause, and stop 
at the first half of the verse, " he died according to the word 
of the Lord., which Elijah had spoken'' The Aldine copy, 
however, gives the concluding words as follows : And Jo- 
ram, the brother of Ahaz, reigned in his stead, for hefiad no 

son, IN THE SECOND YEAR OF JoRAM, SON OF JeHOSHAPHAT 

KING OF Judah." The words in italic agree exactly with 
the text of Josephus, which, without doubt, exhibits that 
of the Seventy as it stood in his time.J But that the 
last clause in capitals is an interpolation since, made to assi- 
milate the passage to the present Hebrew text, appears from 
the very order of the Vv ords ; for had they existed originally in 
the text, the last clause would properly have come in before 
the words, for he had no son, or would even have been placed 

* Namely, Jehoram or Joram, of Israel. 
f x\ntiquities, B. ix. ch. ii. 2. 

X Since this was written I have procured a copy of Josephus, and am 
now enabled to give his words. After saying that " in a short time after- 
wards he (Ahaziah) died according to the prediction of Elijah," he adds^ 

The clause is well translated by Whiston, as already quoted ; and al- 
though the words of Josephus are not literally copied from the text of the 
Seventy, they exactly express its sense, and show that Josephus wrote 
this passage with the Old Testament lying open before him. His silence 
also as to the words in capitals, which I have rejected as spurious, can 
only be accounted for by supposing they then had no existence in the 
text. 

D 



26 



at the beginning of the sentence, whereas in their present 
position they bear the appearance of awkward patchwork, in- 
consistent, I presume, with the usual idiomatic order. 

3d. That the above clause is an interpolation, is further 
manifest, because it affirms that which is false, and in the very- 
teeth of other Scriptures ; for it has already been shown, from 
1 Kings xxii. 40., that Ahaziah did not reign till his father's 
death; now Jehoshaphat, the father of Jehoram, outlived 
Ahab and Ahaziah, and was in alliance with Jehoram, king of 
Israel, (2 Kings iii. 7.) who, the Hebrew text, (ver. 1.) says, 
began to reign in Jehoshaphat's 18th year. How then could 
Jehoram of Israel at once begin to reign in the 18th year of 
Jehoshaphat, whose whole reign was 25 years, and in tlie 2d 
year of his son and successor, who also in another text, 2 
Kings viii. 16., is said, and in perfect consistency with the 
harmony of Scripture, to have begun to reign in the 5th year 
of king Joram of Israel ? In other words, how could Joram 
of Israel begin to reign ofter Jehoram of Judah, and Jehoram 
of Judah begin to reign after Joram of Israel? It is then 
quite manifest, that the testimony of the above clause, as it 
now stands in our Hebrew text, is directly opposed to that of 
other and authentic Scriptures.* The clause itself is there- 
fore an interpolation. 

Having cleared the way for it, I shall now give the read- 
ing of the Aldine edition of the Seventy, already mentioned. 
But it becomes necessary for me to state that it is found in a 
passage at tlie end of 2 Kings ch. i., which, though it is in 
nearly all the copies of the Seventy, does not now exist in 
the Hebrew text or English version. Of this clause, as it 
stands in the Aldine edition, the following is the literal ren- 
dering; it comes in at the end of the 18th verse: 

And Joram, the son of Ahab, reigned over Israel in Sama- 

* I have not here noticed the device of Lightfoot and Usher for recon- 
ciling these contradictions, namely, that Jehoram was associated in the 
kingdom with his father Jehoshaphat in the 18th year of his reign, be- 
cause in reality it is a fiction of their imaginations, utterly destitute of 
Scriptural evidence. 



27 



ria twelve years, in the twenty-first year* of the reign 
OF Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and he did evil in the 
sight of the Lord, hut not as his brethren nor as his mother, for 
he put away the pillars of Baal which his father had made^ 
and brake them. ; but he cleaved to the sins of Jeroboam of the 
house of Nebatj who caused Israel to sin ; he did not depart 
from them, (and the anger of the Lord waxed hot against the 
house of Ahab.) 

Now, it is manifest that this clause could not have dropped 
into the text of the Seventy by chance. For, with the ex- 
ception of the concluding words between brackets, and also 
with the exception of the reading of the number of the year 
of Jehoshaphat's reign, denoting the time of the accession 
of Joram, it is the very same as is found in our present 
Hebrew and English Bibles at the beginning of the 3d chap- 
ter of the same book of Kings, where it is also repeated in 
the Greek copies, but the reading there is, in the eighteenth 
year of Jehoshaphat^ as in the Hebrev/, 

There is then no rational way of accounting for the exist- 
ence of the foregoing clause in the Greek copies at the end 
of the 1st chapter, but by supposing that wdien the version 
of the Seventy was made, the very same passage existed also 
in the Hebrew text, and that at the time the Masoretic Doc- 
tors inserted the interpolation in v. 17. they, in order to con- 
ceal the deed, transferred the concluding clause of the chap- 
ter to the beginning of ch. iii., where it is now found ; and if 
the connexion in which it there stands be examined, it will 
be perceived that it is much less natural than in its original 
place at the end of ch. i., for it is now found in the middle 
of a narrative concerning Elisha the prophet, of whose his- 

* All the impressions of the Septuagint which are founded on the Va- 
tican edition, read here, in the Eighteenth year of the reign of Jehosha- 
phat, but with this exception they have the whole clause as the Aldine, 
which thus reads the first part of it : K«/ la^af/, vlo? AxaaS (laffiXuvu t-n 

Iff^d'/iX iv '^ay.a.^na irri "^szaouo iv ini sixotrroj xai Tf^taTOj t-as (ooicrtkiia,; lMffa,(pa.r 



28 



tory the expedition into Moab and the miraculous supply of 
water form a part. 

I shall now, with the aid of the Aldine edition, give what 
I conceive to have been the original reading of 2 Kings i. 
17. to the end, and I think it will commend itself to the 
reader who is conversant with such inquiries, as containing 
the strongest internal evidence of truth. 

So he died according to the word of the Lord which Elijah 
had spoken : and Jehoram reigned in his stead, for he had no 
son, 

Noiv the rest of the acts of Ahaziah, which he did, are they 
not written in the hook of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel ? 

And Joranij son of Ahab, reigned over Israel in Samaria 
twelve years, in the twenty-first year of the reign of Jeho- 
shaphat king of Judah; and he did evil in the sight of the 
Lord, hut not as his brethren nor as his mother, for he put 
away the pillars of Baal which his father had made, and he 
brake them ; but he cleaved to the sins of the house of Jeroboam 
the son of Nebat, who caused Israel to sin ; he did not depart 
from them, and the anger of the Lord waxed hot against the 
house of Ahah. 

The clause thus, as I believe, restored to its original in- 
tegrity, does, it will be seen, exactly concur with the conclu- 
sion formed by me, before I knew of the existence of such a 
testimony, as the reading of the above number in the Aldine 
edition of the Seventy, for I had previously determined the 
21st year of Jehoshaphat, as being the Jst of Joram of Israel. 
This reading, which, for the reasons already given, is the 
genuine one of the original Hebrew text, adds therefore the 
most powerful support, and sets the seal to the truth of the 
foregoing scheme. On the scheme of Dr Hales himself there 
are, from the 1st of Rehoboam to the end of the 20th of Je- 
hoshaphat, just 81 years, and since it now appears that the 
original reading of the Hebrew text, as preserved in the Al- 
dine copy of the Seventy, makes the 1st of Joram of Israel 
to be the 21st of Jehoshaphat, and since Joram reigned 12 



29 



years, and was slain at the same time with Ahaziah of Judah, 
who was succeeded by queen Athaliah, the interval between 
the end of the 20th of Jehoshaphat and the death of Ahaziah 
of Judah is thus fixed at 12 years ; and 81 + 12 = 93 years 
for the whole period, in exact accordance and harmony with 
the preceding table. 

Finally, the foregoing reading of the Aldine edition de- 
cidedly negatives the correction proposed by Dr Hales in 2 
Kings i. 17. and iii. 1., in both which texts he would read in 
the TWENTY-SECOND year of Jehoshaphat, whereas the twen- 
ty-first is, according to the Aldine, the correct number. 
It also negatives his proposed correction of 1 Kings xxii. 51. 
where he proposes to read in the twentieth of Jehoshaphat, 
whereas it ought to be the nineteenth ; and it annihilates 
the additional 2 years he attributes to the whole period, 
which, as already said, he makes 95 years, whereas its true 
length is 9f3 years. 



CHAP. IV. 



ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERIOD FROM THE FIRST YEAR 
OF QUEEN ATHALIAH TO THE DEATH OF JOSIAH, AND A 
RECAPITULATORY VIEW OF THE WHOLE SCRIPTURAL CHRO- 
NOLOGY FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEMPLE TO ITS 
DESTRUCTION. 

I SHALL, in entering on the consideration of the period first 
mentioned, place before the reader a view of the length of 
the diiterent reigns of Judah according to the schemes of 
Usher, Lightfoot, and Hales, and then give my reasons for 
adhering, with one exception, to the last. 



Kings of Judah. 




Length of reigns. 






Usher. 


Lightfoot. 


Halps. 


Queen Athaliah, 


. 6 


6 


6 


JOASH, 


39 


37 


40 


Amaziah, 


. 29 


29 


29 


Interregnum, . 


0 


11 


11 


UZZIAH, 


. 52 


52 


52 


JOTHAM, 


16 


15 


16 


Ahaz, . 


. 15 


15 


16 


Hezekiah, 


29 


29 


29 


Manasseh, 


. 55 


55 


55 


Amon, 


2 


2 


2 


Josiah, . 


. 31 


31 


31 




274 


282 


287 



The differences between these writers, it will be seen, are 
as follows : — First, with regard to the reign of Joash, which 
Usher reduces to 39 years complete, by making the 1st of 
Amaziah the same with the 40th of Joash; and Lightfoot 
reduces his reign to 37 years, by making Amaziah reign in 



31 



his 38tli year, grounding it apparently on the reading in 2 
Kings xiii. 10,, wherein it is said that Jehoash of Israel began 
to reign in the 37 th of Joash, compared with xiv. 1, which 
says that Amaziah, the son of Joash, reigned in the 2d of 
Jehoash of Israel. It is, however, observed by Hales, that 
the genuine reading of the former text, as preserved in the 
Aldine edition of the Seventy, (which I have verified from 
the copy in my own possession,) is " in the thirty-ninth," 
and not the thirty-seventh of Joash, as in our copies. 
Consequently the ground of the calculation of Dr Lightfoot 
entirely fails. 

Moreover, that Joash did reign the full period of 40 years, 
is proved by the concurring testimony of the 2d book of 
Kings xii. 1. and 2 Chron. xxiv. 1.; and also by comparing 
the Chronology of the cotemporary kings of Israel, it appears 
that his reign vvas parallel with the following three kings. 

1. With Jehu of Israel, who reigned 28 years, — deduct 6 years 

in which he was cotemporary with queen Athaliah, . 22 years 

2. With Jehoahaz, who reigned . . . . . . 17 

3. With Jehoash, 1 

40 years. 

The second point of difference between these three Chro- 
nologers has relation to the Interregnum after the death of 
Amaziah. Hales and Lightfoot agree that there was an In- 
terregnum of 11 years. Usher rejects it altogether. Now, 
the only error of the two former appears to me to consist in 
this, that the true length of the Interregnum is shortened by 
them 1 year. For from 2 Kings xiv. 17., we learn that 
Amaziah of Judah survived Jehoash of Israel 15 years, that 
is, he Kved till the end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th 
of Jeroboam II., the son and successor of Jehoash; and from 
ch. XV. 1. v*e discover that Uzziah did not ascend the throne 
of Judah till the 27th of Jeroboam, it was therefore vacant 
from the 15th to the 27th of Jeroboam =12 years. Hales, 
in order to limit the Interregnum to 1 1 years, proposes to 
alter the readings of the only two texts on which the Inter- 



32 



regnum is founded. That is, he makes use of these texts as 
his authorities to prove the existence of the Interregnum, and 
then alters them to make the length of the Interregnum suit 
his own scheme. I must, however, reject this, and protest 
against it as altogether inadmissible. It is to make the Scrip- 
tures themselves subordinate to our own hypotheses, and to 
receive them just so far as they suit our purpose. I observe 
further, that in the scheme of Dr Hales there is a year of ex- 
cess in the reign of Zedekiah, or at the destruction of the 
Temple, of which the learned Doctor is unconscious, for he 
makes Zedekiah reign b. c. 597, and then computes 1 1 com- 
plete years for his reign, and places, as we have already seen, 
the destruction of Jerusalem in b. c. 586, that is, in the 12th 
year from Zedekiali's accession ; whereas it is plain from 2 
Kings xxv. 1 — 4., that it was in his 11th current year that 
Jerusalem was taken. This error of a year of excess, arising 
from confounding current with complete years, must be de- 
ducted from the whole length of the Chronology of Dr 
Hales, and it requires a year of deficiency in some other 
place, which is foimd in the true length of the above Inter- 
regnum.* Dr Hales himself ought therefore gladly to avail 
himself of it. 

It remains that I should mention the way, in which Dr 
Usher attempts to get quit of the testimony, which establishes 
the above Interregnum, by supposing that Jeroboam reigned 
conjunctly with his father 11 years, and that his 27th year is 
counted from the time, when he was assumed as his father's 
partner in the kingdom. It is only necessary for me to ob- 
serve, that there is not a shadow of evidence for this in the 
Scriptures. On the contrary, the unequivocal testimony of 
2 Kings xiv. 23. is, that Jeroboam began to reign in the 15th 

* This is written without losing sight of the error of Dr Hales, already 
proved, as to the date of the destruction of the First Temple. But my view 
in this place is to prove that the Doctor errs 1 year in the reign of Zede- 
kiah and destruction of the Temple, even upon his own principles. It is 
curious that Dr Russell also errs precisely in the same way, reckoning 
Zedekiali's 11th year as the year before the destruction of the Temple. 



33 



of Amaziali, which is i i years later than Dr Usher's scheme 
requires. 

I shall next consider for a moment Dr Lightfoot's attempt 
to shorten the reign of Jotham from 16 to 15 years. Now, 
both the books of 2 Kings xv. 32, 33. and 2 Chron. xxvii. 1 . 
agTee that he reigned 16 years; and the former tells us, his 
reign began in the 2d year of Pekah, and ended in his 17th 
year^ (2 Kings xvi. L) when Ahaz mounted the throne. 
The reign of Ahaz is therefore computed from the next year, 
the 18th of Pekah, and Jotham thus reigned 16 years, from 
the 2d to the 17th of Pekah, inclusive. 

With respect to the reign of Ahaz, which Usher and 
Lightfoot both concur in bringing down to 15 years, it must 
be acknowledged that there is a difficulty arising from the read- 
ing of 2 Kings xvii. 1. that Hoshea reigned in the 12th of 
Ahaz; for, as it is said in chap, xviii. 1. that Hezekiah began 
to reign in the 3d of Hoshea, tins would give only 15 years 
for the reign of Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah. But since 
both the books of Kings and Chronicles fix his reign at 16 
years,* we must prefer this double testimony to that of the 
single text above-mentioned, which also receives no collateral 
support from any other passage ; I conclude, therefore, with 
Dr Hales, that it was in the 13th of Ahab that Hoshea be- 
gan to reign, which leaves an interregnum of 10 years in the 
kingdom of Israel at this time, and the reign of Ahab is thus 
parallel : — 

1st. With the three conduding years of Pekah, viz. 

his ISdi, 19th, and 20th, .... 3 years. 
2d. Tiie Interregnum, ..... 10 years. 
3d. Hoshea's 3 first years, . . . . . 8 years. 

Total of the reign of Ahab, . . . 16 years. 

As all the above learned vvTiters concur with respect to the 

* 2 Kings xvi. 1,2.: 2 Chron. xxviii. 1. I may also add, that Josephiis, 
and all the ancient Chronographers, and even the Seder Olam Rabba, 
give 16 years complete to Ahaz. 

E 



34 



reigns of the other kings in this period, I am not called upon 
to enter into them ; but, in order to complete the plan of this 
work, I shall place before the reader a table, harmonizing the 
reigns of the kings of Israel with those of Judah, from the 1st 
of Queen Athaliah to the captivity of the Ten Tribes ; and I 
conclude this section by simply observing, that the length of 
the period, from the 1st of Athaliah to the death of Josiah, 
is, after receiving the above correction, just a year more than 
in the scheme of Dr Hales, viz. 288 years, and to this point 
of time I have already traced the Chronology upwards, from 
the year, b. c. 561, being the 37th of the captivity of Jehoi- 
achin, and the 1st of Evil-merodach, and have placed the 1st 
of Jehoiakim, the successor of Josiah, (excepting the 3 months' 
reign of Jehoahaz,) in the year b. c. 609; consequently, the 
death of Josiah, the last of the righteous kings of Judah, oc- 
curred in the year b. c. 61 0, which exactly answers to the last 
year of the above period of 288 years ; and to aggravate this 
heavy blow on the kingdom of Judah, it happened in the 
very year of the twenty-second Jubilee. 



35 



TABLE 



Of the Reigns of the Kings of judah and Israel, from the First Year of 
Queen Athaliah to the Captivity of the Ten Tribes. 



KlXGS OF JUDAH, 



Kings of Israel. 



Yv^ars uf 
Cotetn- 
porary 
Kings uf 
i larael. 


Years of 
Kings ol 
Judah. 


Years of 

the 
whole 
period. 


1 0 


6 


6 


i -28 


22 


28 


' 1 7 


39 


-to 


1 


40 


46 


16 


15 


61 


U 


•29 


75 


26 


12 


87 


41 


15 


102 


•22 






1 


38 


125 


i 1 


49 


136 


2 


51 


138 


1 


52 


139 


17 


16 


155 j 


■20 


•3 


158 


10 


13 


168 


3 


16 


171 


9 


6 


177 

i 



Queen Athahah, j 
2 Kings xi. 3. ^ 

Jehoash, 2 Kiniis / 
xii. 1. ^ i 



Amaziah,2 Kin^s ( 
xiv. 1.2. ( 



Interregnum, 
Uzziah or Azariah, 

2 Kings XV. 1, 2. 

2 Chron. xxvi. 1. 



r 



Jotham, '2 Kiniis ) 
XV. 32, 33. ^ 5 

Ahaz. — xvi. I, ) 
2. ' 2 Chron. [ 
xxviii. 1. ; 



Hezekiah, 2 
Kiniis xviii. 



Jehu, 

Jehu, 2 Kings x. 36. 
Jehoaliaz, — xiii. 1, 
xiii. 
10., the 
Aldine 
Jehoash, <j reading 
is the 
j 3Sth of 
LJoash. 

Jehoash, 

Jeroboam, 2 
Kings xiv. 23. _ 

Jeroboam, — xv. 1 

Jeroboam, 

interregnum, — 
XV. 8^^ 

Zachariah and 
Shallum, 

3Ienahem, 2 
Kings XV. 17. i 
compared with i 
V.23. J 

,Pekahiah, 

'Pekah, — xv. 27. 

Pekah, 

Pekah, 

Interregnum, 
Hoshea, 

Hoshea, 2 Kings ^ 
xvii. 6. 5 



fThe capti- 
vity of the 
10 Tribes in 
the 177th 
vear from 
the ht of! 
Athaliah ; 
in the 270th 
from the 1st 
of Reho. 
boam ; in 
the 307th 
from fouD-j 
dation of 

LTeinple. 



If to this period of 177 years be added the remaining 23 years of Heze- 
kiah, and the sum total of the reigns of Manasseh, 55 ; Amon, 2 ; and 
Josiah, 31 years, the result is 177 + 23 -f 55 + 2 -f 31 =288 years 
for the whole period from the 1st of Athahah to the death of Josiah, in 
whose 31st year, I, with Dr Hales, place the 3 months of Jehcaliaz. 



36 



I shall, in the next place, as introductory to what is to fol- 
low, offer a recapitulatory view of the Chronology of the 
Scriptures from the foundation of the Temple, in the 4th of 
Solomon, to the destruction of the same, in the 11th of Ze- 
dekiah : — 

Years. M. D. 

From the 4th to the 40th of Solomon inclusive, are, 37 
Thence to the death of Ahaziah, as determined in 

chap. iii. 93 

Thence to the death of Josiah, as above, . . 288 
From the accession of Jehoiakim to the end of the 

10th of Zedekiah. (See Table in chap, ii.) . 21 
Temple destroyed on 7th day of 5th month of 11th 

of Zedekiah, 2 Kings xxv. 8. ... 047 

Total from 4th of Solomon to destruction of 

Temple, 439 4 7 

Note. — And as the 440th year, or b. c. 588, is included in the next pe- 
riod of Chronology, this interval is stated as 439 years complete. 

The reason of my giving this recapitulation will now be 
placed before the reader. After I began this work, my at- 
tention having been drawn to a remarkable fact brought for- 
ward by Mr CuUimore, in the Morning Watch, vol. iii. p. 502, 
namely, that Clemens of Alexandria assigns to the foregoing 
period from the foundation to the destruction of the Temple, 
exactly 439 years, 6 months, and 10 days, differing only 2 
months from my own computation, I determined to examine 
his Chronology, and for this end ordered a copy of his works 
from London, which did not arrive till I had written and 
transcribed all the former parts of this chapter to the end of 
the table of the kings, in the preceding page. 

His Chronology is to be seen in the Stromata ; and, on 
examining it, I discover that it bears the evident marks of 
having suffered, like that of Josephus, from the carelessness 
of transcribers. There are, however, still to be found in it, 
authentic numbers which are of great value. The foregoing 
number, mentioned by Mr Cullim^ore, is in the Stromata, 



37 



Lib. I. cliap. xxi. § 121. My copy is the Leipsick edi- 
tion, 1831, wliicli has no Latin version. After mentioning 
sundry other dates, he informs us, that from David's begin- 
ning to reign h Aa/iiS Baffixuas to the captivity of Baby- 
lon, (some reckon,) 452 years, 6 months; but &;s h 'h ku^ yif^a,? 

" whereas, the exactness of the times brings together, accord - 
ing to us, 482 years, 6 months, and 10 days.'' 

Now, if from this period of 482 years, we deduct the 
40 years of David and 3 first of Solomon, the result is 
482 — 43 = 439 years, which is in exact accordance with the 
result of my own computation of this period. 

The reigns of the kings of Judah, which make up this 
period, are given by Clemens in the same book. The first 
part of it contains the foUov/ing reigns : — 





Years. 




Years. 


Solomon, 


40 




128 


Rehoboam, 


17 


Jehoram, 


8 


Abijam, 


23 


Ahaziah, 


I 


Asa the same,* 


23 


Athaliah, 


8 


Jehoshaphat, 


25t 


Joash, 


40 




128 




185 



Now, that there are here some errors in the present text 
of Clemens, appears from what he adds after mentioning the 
40 years of Joash. He says that, according to some, the 
number of years from Solomon to the death of Elisha the 
prophet, is reckoned 105, or, by others, 102; but, accordmg 
to the chronography before set forth, it is shown to be 181 years. 
It appears, then, that Clemens considers the death of Elisha 
to have occurred just at the end of the reign of Joash, and 
makes the intervening period from the accession of Solomon, 

* The Greek here does not repeat the number of 23 years, but says 

ofiotas 0 rovrov vios A<fafAiv, 

t The text has here i, 5, but the annotations at the end of the Works 
of Clemens say, trt] i, scribe ir-zi kI, (for 5 write 25.) The « has plainly 
slipped from the text. 



38 



exactly 181 years; and I find, in harmony with this view, 
that the learned Dr Stackhouse places the death of Elisha at 
the beginning of the reign of Jehoash of Israel, who, ac- 
cording to the Aldine copy of the Seventy, began to reign 
in the 39th of Joash of Judah. 

We may, therefore, take 4 years from the foregoing num- 
ber of 185, namely, 2 years from the reign of Asa,* and 2 



from that of Athaliah,f the result is 185 — 4 = 181 years. 
The remaining reigns, according to Clemens, are : — 

Years. Years. 

207 

Amaziali, 39 Amon, 2 

Uzziah, 52 Josiali, 31 

Jotham, 16 Jehoahaz, 3 10 

Ahaz, 16 Jehoiakim, 11 

Hezekiah, 29 Jehoiachin, 3 

Manasseli, 55 Zedekiah, 11 



207 202 6 10 



If to this sum of 262 years we add the former 181, the 
sum is 443 years from the accession of Solomon to the 1 1 th 
of Zedekiah, and deducting from it the first 3 years of Solo- 
mon, and also the last of Zedekiah, as the Temple was de- 
stroyed on the 7th day of the 4th month of his 11th year, or 
B. c. 588, wdiich year, therefore, comes into the next period ; 
and further, sinking the 3 months of Jehoahaz in the 31st of 
Josiah, and the 3 months of Jehoiachin in the 11th of Jeho- 
iakim, the result is 443 — 4 = 439 years, from the foundation 
of the Temple in the 4th of Solomon to the end of the 10th 
of Zedekiah, in exact harmony with the Chronology of this 

* Because, according to our Bible, Abijam reigned 3 years, and Asa 41 : 
the sum of the two is 44 years. Now, the present text of Clemens gives 
23 to each, or 46 for the two reigns ; therefore, to equalize them with the 
testimony of the Scriptures, deduct 2 from Asa. 

f Because, according to our Bibles, and Josephus, and all other Cliron- 
ographers, Athaliah reigned only 6 years ; wliereas, the present text of 
Clemens, as above-mentioned, makes her reign 8 years. 



39 



V\'ork. The only differences also in the details are, that Clemens 
gives to Jehoram of Judah the full period of 8 years, and in 
place of an interregnum of 12 years betvveen Amaziah and 
Uzziali, he prolongs the reign of Amaziah to 39 years, in- 
stead of 29, and this addition of 10 years to his reign, added 
to the 2 years of Jehoram of Judah, is equal to the 12 years 
of interregnum. 

It is plain that Clemens supposes that the original and true 
reading of the length of Amaziah's reign was 39 years, and 
that it must ha^'e been so in the copy of the Septuagint in 
his possession, and perhaps also in the copy of Josephus. 
This would reduce the interregnum to 2 years between his 
death and the accession of Uzziah. Without enterino: into 
this question, it is, at any rate, undeniable, that the testimony 
of Clemens, in this difficult part of the sacred Chronology, 
must be considered as powerfully supporting the conclusion 
previously formed in this Vrork, as to the true length of the 
period between the foundation of the Te3IPLE and its destruc- 
tion by Nebuchadnezzar, which, it will be remembered, comes 
short of the computation of Hales exactly 2 years, since he 
makes the period 441 years; and let it be recollected by the 
reader, that this conclusion was formed before I knew of the 
existence of the testimony of Clemens in its favom'. 



CHAP. V. 



ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE PERIOD FROM THE EXODUS TO 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEMPLE IN THE FOURTH YEAR 

OF SOLOMON AND ON THE TRUE DATE OF THE DEATH OF 

JOSHUA. 

This period, tliougK first in time, I have placed last in the 
order of discussion, as it is embarrassed with fewer difficulties 
than any of those which we have previously examined. 

The Chronology of this interval has for its basis the period 
of 450 years mentioned by St Paul, in Acts xiii. 20, begin- 
ning from the division of the lands in the year 47 after the 
Exodus, and ending at the death of Eli, and it subdivides 
itself into three parts : — 

Years. Years. 

I. 1. From the Exodus to the death of Moses, 40 
2. From that to the division of the land, 7 

~ 47 

II. From that to the death of Eh, ... 450 

III. 1. The Seventh Servitude, I Sam. vii. 1,2. 20 

2. Administration of Samuel after the vic- 
tory at Mizpah, (Josephus), . . 12 

3. Reigns of Saul 40 years, David 40 years, 

first 3 years of Solomon, . . . 83 115 

612 years. 



Now, as there is no question as to the accuracy of the first 
and third parts of this period, it ollows, that in order to 
prove the exact truth of the whole, all that is necessary is to 
show, that St Paul's number of 450 years ends at the death 
of Eli ; and if this be made out, then, even should there be 



41 



any difficulty in filling up and completely adjusting the com- 
ponent parts of the 450 years, it cannot affect the soundness 
of the conclusion, that the length of the whole period here 
treated of, is 612 years. 

: In order with certainty to determine the proper termination 
of St Paul's period, let us first inquire, what were the various 
dispensations of God to Israel, and the great divisions of 
their national annals ; and let us, in the second place, com- 
pare with these, the different parts of the Apostle's historical 
recapitulation in the synagogue of Antioch. Now, we shall 
find these divisions to be, — 1st, Their 40 years' abode in the 
v/ilderness; — 2d, The conquest and division of Canaan; — 
3d, From the division to the end of the judges; — 4th, The 
intermediate administration of Samuel, combining the judi- 
cial, the prophetic, and the priestly offices, in his own per- 
son ; — 5th, The reign of Saul ; — 6th, The accession of David. 
I need go no further in this recapitulation, seeing that St 
Paul goes no further into their national history, when he 
preaches in the synagogue of Antioch. We find Josephus 
following the same order; only that he blends the second and 
tJm'd periods, making them to end at the death of Eli, and 
also the fourth and fifth, which he makes to terminate at the 
death of Saul. 

Let us now consider the order of St Paul's discourse.* 

He speaks first of the redemption of Israel out of Egypt ; 
next of God's dealings with them in the wilderness : in the 
third place, of the conquest of Canaan, and the dividing it to 
them by lot, and then he adds, " after that, he gave unto 
them judges about the space of four hundred aiid fifty years, 
until Samuel the prophet:' He, in the fifth place, mentions 
the reign of Saul ioT forty years; and, sixthly, the elevation 
of David to the throne of Israel, Nothing can be plainer to 
the mind, that has no partiality in this inquiry, than that the 
Apostle distinguishes betv,^een dispensation and dispensation 
in this discourse, passing through them in order, and givino- 



* Acts xiii. 17—22. 



42 



the length of the firsts that of the wilderness ; the thirds that 
of the judges; and the fifths being that of the reign of Saul, 
while he omits the Chronology of the second and fourth. To 
suppose, then, as the scheme of Dr Hales does, that the dis- 
pensation of the judges went ten years lower than the end of 
the 450 years, that is, to a period of 460 years from the di- 
vision, is to suppose that the Apostle affirmed what was not 
strictly true, and contradicted himself. 

Accordingly, Eusebius, in his Chronicon, in giving a view 
of the Chronology of the Book of Judges in harmony with 
St Paul's period of 450 years, makes it terminate at the 
death of Eli. Lightfoot, in his Exer citations on Acts, fol- 
lows the same arrangement. Whitby also, in his Annotations 
on Acts xiii., identifies St Paul's 450 years with the Judges. 
Now, it must be admitted that these writers were, as to this 
point, impartial witnesses. It is true that Eusebius, after 
having harmonized the Book of Judges with the 450 years, 
chooses, in preference to it, the shorter computation of the 
Jews, in 1 Kings vi. 1.; and his reason for this is, that he 
found it impossible to reconcile the larger Chronology from 
the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple, which, accord- 
ing to his computation, was 600 years, with the fact of there 
being only 5 generations from Salmon, the husband of Rahab, 
to David, in a period of more than five centuries ; Dr Hales 
has, however, ingeniously removed this difficulty, by show- 
ing, from the generations of three lines of the family of Levi, 
in 1 Chron. vi. that there were 15 generations in each of 
them, from Levi to the age of David, and in the fourth line 
14 generations ;* and, therefore, he concludes, that we are 
obliged to suppose that several generations of the genealogi- 
cal Table of the house of David have been lost. 

The number of 612 years, thus established as the true 
Chronology from the Exodus to the foundation of the Tem- 
ple, accords, as Dr Hales informs us, with two different pass- 



* Hales, vol. iii. p. 46, 8vo edition. 



43 



ages in the text of Joseplms. The first is in Antiq. B. xx. 
chap. X. 1. 

" Now, the number of years during the rule of these thir- 
" teen (high priests) from the day that our fathers departed 
out of Egypt under Moses their leader, until the building 
of that temple which King Solomon erected at Jerusalem, 
" were six hundred and twelve.'' The second is in his Work 
against Apion, B. ii. 2. where his words are, " Solomon 
" himself built that temple six hundred and twelve years after 
" the Jews came out of Egypt." Dr Hales further says, the 
same number may be deduced from a set of dates in the An- 
tiquities, B. ix. chap. xiv. 1. but he does not tell us the pro- 
cess by which he makes it out. I, however, have been en- 
abled to compute it as follows : — Josephus there informs us, 
that the captivity of the Ten Tribes, by Shalmanasar, was 947 
years after they came out of Egypt. If from this number we 
deduct 40 years of excess in the reign of Solomon, which 
Josephus makes 80 years, and if we add 12 years for the 
interregnum in Judah, after Amaziah, which is omitted by 
Josephus, then 947 — 40 -f 12 = 919 years, which is the 
exact Chronology of the same period in this Work, as 
follows : — 

The Exodus b c. 1639 

The captivity of the Ten Tribes, ... 721 

The difference is precisely 918 years complete, or 919 
current, viz. from the Exodus to the foundation of the Tern- 
pie, 612 years; and thence to the captivity of the tribes, 307 
years. 

Josephus does, however, in another passage of his Antiqui- 
ties, B. viii. 3. 1. give a different number, viz. 592 years as 
the length of the period from the Exodus to the foundation 
of the Temple ; and the same also, says Dr Hales, " may be 
collected from a set of dates. Ant. x. 8. 5. It is, therefore, 
embraced by Spanheim and Jackson and more recently, 
Dr Russell has adopted it as the true Chronology. The 



44 



reader will find my reasons for rejecting it in Appendix ii. 
§ vi. 9—15. 

Dr Hales, on the other hand, pronounces both the periods 
above-mentioned, of 612 and 592 years, to be spurious, and 
endeavours, by a comparison of two different dates in the text 
of Josephus, to deduce the larger period of 621 years, as the 
true length of the interval, from the Exodus to the founda- 
tion of the Temple. Having discovered, that in Ant. x. 8. 
5. the number of 1062 years, is stated as the period from the 
Exodus to the destruction of the Temple, he subducts from 
it the number of 477 years, mentioned in Bell. Jud. vi. 10. 
which he understands to be computed " from the capture of 
Jebus by David," to the destruction of the Temple; and 
" the remainder, 585 years," (says Dr Hales,) " will give 
" the time from the Exode to the capture of Jebus, 2 Sam, 

V. 6. To these 585 years add 36 more, (namely, 33 for 
" the remainder of David's reign after the capture, and the 
" three first years of Solomon's,) and the simi, 621 years, will 
" give the correct period from the Exode to the foimdation 
" of the Temple." 

Against this conclusion of Dr Hales, the following reasons 
are advanced by Dr Russell: — " This computation," (says 
he,) " has no better foundation than an apparent ambiguity 
" in the language used by Josephus, which, to an ignorant 
" or hasty reader, may seem to bear a reference to the war- 
" like exploit recorded of the second king of Israel, whereas, 
" in fact, it denotes very clearly the end of that monarch's 
" reign." " The words of the historian,* are sufficiently 
" well translated by Whiston in these terms, ' David, the 
" king of the Jews, ejected the Canaanites, and settled his 
" own people therein, (Jerusalem) and it was demolished 
" entirely by the Babylonians, four hundred and seventy- 
" seven years, and six months, after him.'' " And certainly 
it appears, as Dr Russell afterwards remarks, somewhat sur- 
prising, that Dr Hales should have understood the phrase 



Dr Russell, vol. i. p. 125, here gives the Greek, which I omit. 



45 



ixir' avrcv^ oftev Mm^ as applying to the reduction of Jebus, 
whereas its plain meaning is, after David himself. 

Unless, therefore, Dr Hales can support tliis part of his 
scheme by other arguments, it must fall to the ground, as 
being destitute of evidence. This leads us, therefore, in the 
next place, to the consideration of a passage in Josephus, 
Antiq. vi. 5. upon which, though he does not directly quote 
it, Dr Hales seems chiefly to rest his longer Chronology of 
this period. Josephus therein informs us, that " after the 
" death of Joshua, for eighteen years in all, the multitude had 
" no settled government, but were under an anarchy." 

Before entering into the reasons from this passage, in fa- 
vour of the scheme of Dr Hales, it may be proper to remark, 
that he includes, in the 18 years' anarchy, the 8 years of the 
1st Servitude; with regard to which, \yq have no difference 
with him. It is, therefore, subdivided into two periods, one 
of 10 and the other of 8 years. Indeed, the words of Jose- 
phus himself seem necessarily to lead to this subdivision, for 

his expressions are trifi roi; 'pracn '^iy.x 'ffQ^oi rovToi? OKTM ro tX'/i9-o; 

which are rendered by Hudson, " for alto- 
gether ten years, and besides them eight, the people had not 
" a supreme magistrate." * 

It is, then, apparently on the foundation of this passage, 
that Dr Hales maintains that the interval between the death 
of Moses and the beginning of the administration of Othniel, 
is, 26 years to the death of Joshua -f- 18 years to the end 
of the 1st Servitude = 44 years. On the other hand, I 
hold the same interval, to be, for Joshua and the elders, or 
anarchy, 27 years + 8 years for the 1st Servitude = 35 
years. The difference between us is, therefore, exactly 9 
years. 

Now, whether 44, or 35 years, be here the true Chronology, 
it is apparent, that as this interval belongs to that period of 
the annals of Israel, which is included in the 5th Book of 
the Antiquities, being from the death of Moses to the death 

* Annos omnes decern et octo praterea, populus riori luibuit summum 
magistratum. 



46 



of Eli, the larger number of 18 years' anarchy found in the 
6th Book, ought to accord with the sum total of 476 years, 
which is said, at the beginning of the 5th Book, to be the 
length of time contained in it, and should this harmony not 
be found to exist, we must conclude, either that the number 
itself is spurious, or that Josephus has fallen into some mis- 
take in other parts of the Chronology of the 5th Book, which 
must be removed or rectified, in order to reconcile it with this 
period of 18 years. 

I shall now, therefore, lay before the reader a Table of the 
Chronology of the 5th Book of the Antiquities, which, with 
two exceptions, is taken from the text of Josephus, as it 
stands in Whiston's translation. The exceptions are, that I 
have supplied from the Scriptures two blanks, viz. 23 years 
for Tolah, (Judges x. 2.) of whose administration there is 
no mention in the present copies of Josephus, and 8 years 
for Abdon, (Judg. xii. 13, 14.) whose length of administration 
is not given by him. This Table brings out, as will be seen, 
exactly the sum of 476 years ; and if the reader will refer to 
the Appendix ii. Sect. vi. 6. he will perceive that it was this 
circumstance that led me to reject the additional 10 years of 
anarchy in the Chronology of Hales, which, I was aware, 
existed somewhere in the text of Josephus, though at that 
time I did not know the place where it was to be found.* 
Discovering, however, that the Chronology of that Book 
was complete without the period of 10 years, I at once con^ 
eluded that there was no real ground for believing it to be 
genuine. But having, since then, more thoroughly investi- 
gated another question in the Scriptural Chronology of this 
period, which will be mentioned afterwards, I now believe, 
that the right solution of that point removes every difficulty, 
with respect to the period of anarchy. 

* The presumption in my own mind, then was, that the copy used by 
Dr Hales had, in B. v. chap. iii. 2., instead of eight years, the reading of 
eighteen years. 



47 



Joshua, 


25 years. 




282 years. 


Anarchy, (10) 


Tolah, . 


. 23 


1. Servitude, 


8 


Jair, 


22 


Othniel, . 


40 


5. Servitude, . 


18 


2. Serv itude. 


18 


Jephtha, 


. 6 


Ehud, ' . 


80 


Ibzan, 


7 


Shamgar, 


1 


Elon, 


. 10 


3. Servitude, 


20 


Abdon, 


8 


Barak and Deborah, 


40 


G. Servitude, 


. 40 


4. Servitude, 


7 


Sampson, 


20 


Gideon, 


40 


Eli, 


. 40 


Abimelech, 


3 












476 years 




282 years. 





Now, as tlie two blanks, of 23 years for Tolali. and for 
Abclon 8 years, make up tlie exact number of 476 years, 
iliere seems to be no reason to doubt tliat tliey were in tlie 
text originallv. Moreover, as tlie 18 years' anarchy being 
10 more tlian tbe length of the 1st Servitude, which is in- 
cluded in the 18, would make the whole Chronology of the 
5tli book 486, instead of 476 years, against which conclusive 
reasons ^-ill be offered below, it follows, that either the addi- 
tional 10 years must be rejected, or that we must follow those 
eminent writers, who place the death of Joshua considerably 
earlier, than the date assigned to it b}" Josephus, which will 
enable us to reconcile the remaining parts of his system vdih 
the Scriptures. The reasons against the sum of 486 years 
being adopted as the Chronology of the 5th book of the An- 
tiquities, are founded on the fact, that by certain corrections, 
which I shaR now state, the period of 476 years is made en- 
tirely to harmonize with the true length of the period of the 
Judges. For this purpose we must add '2 years to the period of 
25 years from the entrance into the land, to the beginnino- of 
the 1st Servitude. We must next deduct the 1 year of Sham- 
gar, as the 80 years of Judges iii. 30. include his adniinisti-a- 
tion. We must further deduct the 20 years of Sampson, as 
they form a part of the 40 years' Servitude, called the dcnjs of 
the Philistines, Judges xv. 20. The result T\-ill then be, 
476 -f 2 — 1 — 20 = 457, vrliich is the exact period from 
the entrance into the land till the death of Eli : and deduct- 
ing the 7 years from the entrance to the division, the remain- 



48 



der, 450 years, is the period of Acts xiii. 20. It will, on tlie 
contrary, be foimd impossible to reconcile the period of 486 
years with the Scriptures and St Paul ; and, accordingly, Dr 
Hales is compelled to bring out the end of St Paul's 450 
years ten years before the end of the administration of Eli, 
and thus in effect to maintain, contrary to the words of the 
Apostle, that after the division of the land God gave to Israel 
judges for four hundred and sixty years. 

Having thus established the fact, that 476 years is the ge- 
nuine Chronology of Josephus in his 5th book of the Anti- 
quities, and that the number of 44 years, which Dr Plales 
makes between the death of Moses and the end of the 1st 
Servitude, is wholly irreconcilable with that Chronology and 
the period of St Paul, I shall next shov/ that the larger pe- 
riod of 44 years, from the death of Moses to the end of the 
1st Servitude, contradicts the general voice of our ablest 
Chronographers. I am not, indeed, ignorant that Usher is 
an exception to this remark. But on consulting his Annals, 
I find his arrangement of this period is so confused, that it is 
almost impossible to get a clear apprehension of it. Pie seems 
to have had such a feeiing- of the unsoundness of his own 
foundation, as to have been afraid to subdivide and particular- 
ize. In his Chronologia Sacra, an extract of which is given 
by Dr Russell,* his views are indeed stated som.ewhat more 
distinctly, although he still avoids detail. From the division 
of the lands to the beginning of the administration of Othniel, 
he makes 40 years, wdiich is 12 years more than is allowed 
in this Work, and 4 years more than by Dr Hales. From 
the above point of time, to the end of the administration of 
Shamgar, he reckons only 80 years, whereas the true length 
of this period is 138 years. In order to effect these ends, 
Usher shortens the administration of Ehud from 80 years to 
20. f Thus the scheme of this learned writer, like the bed 

* Connect, of Sac. and Prof. Hist, vol. i. p. 132. 

f This administration is in our Bibles stated as being from b. c. 
1336 to 1316 20 years. Some tables, following Usher's Chronologi- 



49 



of Procrustes, lengtliens the Chronology of the Scriptures at 
one moment, and cuts it down the next, to suit its own dimen- 
sions. It, in short, sets at defiance the whole testimony of 
the written word, and putting" the Chronology of the Bible 
into its crucible, brings it out so mutilated as to bear no re- 
semblance to the proportions of the original. We may then 
at once lay aside the scheme of Usher, as being without any 
authority in this inquiry ; and we presmne that no one, who 
has a real knowledge of the subject, will, in the present day, 
attempt to ground any arguments upon so unsound a basis as 
the system of Usher, in. reference to the true Chronology of 
the period which is now under discussion. 

I pass on, therefore, to a sm*vey of the opinions of other 
Chronographers. Among the ancients, I learn from the 
Chronicon of Eusebius, that Julius Africanus inserted 30 
years for the Elders after the death of Joshua. But Eusebius 
loudly censures this and other interpolations of Africanus, as 
being without Scriptiural authority.* Eusebius, in his own 
scheme of the Chronology of this period, assigns 27 years for 
Joshua, and then passes to the 1st Servitude, f 

The learned Abul Pharaji, in his Historia Dynastiarum, p. 
24, affirms that Joshua ruled 27 years, and after him that 
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, led the people, according to the 
opinion of Anianus, 24 years ; he however significantly adds, 
" Scriptura aiitem Sacra hand prcBcise designat has annos.''^ 
TJie Sacred Scripture does 7iGt, however^ clearly designate these 
years. Indeed, the notion of Phinehas governing the people, is 
directly contrary to the Scriptures, since in Judges xx. 28. we 
read that he stood before the ark at the very time when there 
was no king in Israel, that is, no national government, — the very 
state of things described by Josephus under the term anarchy. 

cal scheme, give the dates differently, but I have seen none which give 
more tlian 20 years to Ehud and Shamgar. 

* Euseb. Chronicon. Armenian copy; Venice, 1818. Part T. p. 156-7. 

f It is plain that Eusebius, and all the Clu'onographers who adopt this 
period of 27 years, do in fact include in it the period of the Elders, or 
anarchy. 

G 



50 



TheopliiliiSj bishop of Antiocli, a. d. 330, assigns to tlie 
whole period, from the Exodus to the foundation of the 
Temple, exactly 612 years, and for Joshua 27 years.* Among 
the moderns, Petavius gives to Joshua 14 years and the El- 
ders lO.f Jackson assigns to Joshua and the Interregnum 
27 years4 Play fair makes the interval for Joshua and the 
1st Servitude only 25 years.§ Brett gives 35 years from the 
death of Moses to the end of the 1st Servitude, which allows 
27 years for Joshua and the Elders. |1 Dr Russell, after re- 
jecting Dr Hales' additional 10 years, fixes the whole length 
of the administration of Joshua and the Elders and the 
anarchy at 27 years. With the exception, tlien, of Syncel- 
lus, whose work I have not seen, (but from a note in the 
Armenian edition of the Chronicon of Eusebius, 1 conjectm^e 
that he received the larger number of 18 years' anarchy of 
Josephus, ) Dr E[ales is, I presume, the only writer of note on 
Chronology, since the third century of our era, who has assigned 
a longer period than 35 years to the interval from the death of 
Moses to the end of the 1st Servitude.^ I do not of course 
include Usher in this remark, seeing that, for the reasons al- 
ready given, his scheme is not entitled to any weight in this 
discussion. Moreover, since 35 years, as the length of that 
interval, is the only number that harmonizes with the 450 
years of St Paul, and, as will be shown afterwards, with the 
whole scheme of the Jewish Shemittahs, we conclude that it 
is the truth. 

It now remains that we should harmonize this period of 35 
years with the narrative of the books of Joshua and Judges, 
and for this purpose it is necessary, in the first place, to fix 
upon the most probable date for the death of Joshua. Upon 
this point we have no information in the Scriptures, and no 

* Dr Russell's Connection, vol. i. p. 128. f Ibid. p. 131. 

t Ibid. p. 135. § Ibid. p. 136. 

II Brett's Chronological Essay on the Sacred Histor)% &c. London, 
1729. See p. 37 of Essay, and 1 12, 1 14, of History. 

% The reader may see the truth of this assertion further verified by con- 
sulting Dr Hales, vol. i. p. 216. 



51 



other evidence but that of Josephiis, in one passage of his 
Antiquities, B. v. ch. i. 29., where he tells us that Joshua 
was the commander of the Israelites for 25 years. The 
greater part of our Chronologers have followed this authority 
of Josephus, and have assigned 25 years to Joshua and 2 
years to the anarchy. Some have, however, dissented from 
this view, and have held the personal administration of Joshua 
to have been very short after the conquest and division of 
Canaan, Bishop Patrick, in his commentary on Joshua, xxiv. 
29., after noticing the great diversity of opinion on this 
point, says, " there is a middle opinion maintained by others, 
" that he was their governor seventeen year's; see Bonfrerius."* 
This view has been adopted by Dr Lightfoot, and in the 
Chronological Tables of the Ancient Universal History, in 
my copy of which (London, 1754,) there is an evident mis- 
print in the year, but the explanatory column says that " Jo- 
shua having governed the Israelitish commonwealth 17 years 
from their entrance into Canaan, and being now 110 years 
old, gathers all the heads of the people unto him," — " and 
dies soon after." 

I proceed now to offer reasons for believing that this is the 
true date of the death of Joshua, and to show that it removes 
every difficulty. In the first place, let it be observed that 
Josephus is inconsistent with the Scriptures when he affirms, 
in Antiq. B. v. ch. i. 19, that only the fifth year was now 
past when Joshua pitched the tabernacle in Shiloh. It is 
plain from Joshua xiv. 7, 10., that Caleb was 40 years' old 
when the spies explored the land, which w^as at the season of 
I ripe grapes, August or September, in the 2d year of the 
Exodus, and now at the first division he was 85 years of age ; 
it was, therefore, in the 47 th year from the Exodus that the 

* Diipin, in his Biblioth. des Autenrs Ecclesiastiques, thus character- 
izes Bonfrerius. " De tous les Commentateurs Jesuites de I'Ecriture 
sainte il n'y en a point a raon avis qui ait suivi une meilleure methode et 
qui ait plus de science et de justesse dans ses explications que Jacques 
Bonfrerius."—" Ses Commentaires sur le Pentateuque, sur Josue et sur 
le Livre des Juges et de Ruth sent excellens." ^ 

li 



52 



division took place. The rearing of the tabernacle at Shiloh, 
ch. xviii. 1., is a later transaction than this, for it was after 
Judah and Ephraim and the half tribe of Manasseh had re- 
ceived their lots, and it cannot well be placed earlier than the 
8tli year of the war. It was still later when Joshua dismissed 
the Reiibenites and Gadites and half tribe of Manasseh, since 
it was (xxii. 4.) after all the other tribes had entered into their 
rest. Now, Josephus asserts, in Antiq. B. v. ch. i. 29., as al- 
ready said, that Joshua ruled Israel 25 years ; yet, after hav- 
ing related all the circumstances which have been mentioned, 
the last of which was the dismissing of the two and a half 
tribes beyond Jordan, he says, in section 28, that it was in 
the 20th year after these things, that is, for the reasons al- 
ready given, after the 8th year, that Joshua assembled the 
heads and congregation of Israel to give them his final coun- 
sel and exhortation : and thus, instead of having been their 
commander 25 years, he must, according to this passage, have 
ruled Israel 28 years. 

Since, then, it is evident that Josephus, where he speaks of 
the Chronology of the administration of Joshua, is inconsist- 
ent with the Scriptures in one place, and contradicts himself 
in others ; and since, also, it has been seen that his account 
of the length of Joshua's government is inconsistent with his 
own Chronology of the 5th book of the Antiquities and his 
period of anarchy in B. vi. ch. v., it follows that his testimony, 
or at least the genuineness of his present text, is not to be 
depended upon in this part of the sacred Chronology, and 
therefore must be rejected. 

The book of Joshua informs us, ch. xiii. 1., that before the 
first division of the land, Joshua was already old and stricken 
in years. In ch. xxiii. 1, 2., we are again told that it was a 
long time after the Lord had given rest to Israel, when also he 
was old and stricken in years, that Joshua assembled all Israel 
for the purposes which are afterwards mentioned. Now, the 
Hebrew expression, denoting the old age of Joshua, is, in both 
the foregoing passages, identically the same, and the phrase, 
□"'2") xyiy a long time, or many days, used to express the in- 



53 



tervening years, is in cli. xiii. 1. the samewitli tliat in xi. 18.^ 
denoting the duration of the war, which we know was less 
than 7 years. It is manifest, therefore, that these expressions 
are quite consistent with the fact now supposed, that the 
death of Joshua took place about the year 17 from the en- 
trance into Canaan, and this leaves us an interval of 18 years 
to the beginning of the administration of Othniel, for the 
events recorded in the first two and last five chapters of 
Judges. Before proceeding to show, that the interval is quite 
sufficient for these purposes, I shall bring before the reader 
another argument confirmatory of the foregoing conclusion, 
as to the date of the death of Joshua. 

Since he died at the age of 110, if his decease took place 
in the year 17 after the entrance into the land, then at the 
Exodus he was just 53 years of age, for 53 -f 40 -f- 17 = 110. 
On the other hand, if, according to the present text of Jose- 
phus, he ruled Israel 25 years, this makes him only 45 at the 
Exodus. Let us inquire which of these ages is most in ac- 
cordance with Scriptural probability, and the general opinion 
of the Jews, w^ho, it must be admitted, are, in a matter of this 
kind, good judges. 

There is one text containing an expression which appears 
to favour the last opinion. It is Exodus xxxiii. 11., and Jo- 
shua is there called a young man. " Why Joshua is called a 
" young man^'' says Bishop Patrick, " vrhen he was near sixty 
" years old, is not easy to resolve. Perhaps it signifies a va- 
" liantman^ for so he was ; or, he had waited on Moses from his 
" youth ; or, as Maimonides, this is the phrase of the Hebrew 
" nation, who call all men young till they begin to decay." Dr 
Gill remarks, " Joshua is described" — "by his age a young 
" man, as he was in comparison of Moses, and is so called, 
" chiefly because he was his servant, it being usual to call ser- 
" vants young men, of whatever age ; for Joshua, strictly 
" speaking, could not be a young man in years; he was the 
" general of the army at the battle with Amalek, and, accord- 
" ing to Eben Ezra, was now 56 years of age, which he col- 
" lects from his living to the age of 1 10 years ; now, to 56 add 



54 



" tlie 40 years in the wilderness, 7 years in whicli he subdued 
" the land of Canaan, and 7 more in dividing it, as say their 
" wise men, the sum is 110 years." The remark of Mr Scott 
is, " Joshua was at this time about fifty-three years old, but 
" he was a young man compared with Moses, and this was a 
" common title to those w^ho acted as servants to others."* 
Such, then, being the concurring views of some of our lead- 
ing Commentators on this point, I shall next, with reference 
to the probable age of Joshua, examine what the Scriptures 
reveal to us as to his genealogy. 

There is a very strange mistake to be found on this point, 
in the Work of Dr Hales. He tells us in a Note, vol. ii. p. 
145, that Joshua was in the tenth generation from Ephraim, 
" and was born about b. c. 1692, or 270 years after the set- 
" tlement of Jacob's family in Egypt, which gives twenty- 
" seven years to a generation." Now, there is an error of a 
whole century here ; for, according to Hales, Jacob's family 
went into Egypt, b. c, 1863; thence to 1692 is an interval of 
171 years, instead of 270 ; which, if Joshua was in the 10th 
generation from Ephraim, gives only 17 years to a generation. 

I apprehend, however, that Dr Hales is wrong in affirming, 
that Joshua was in the 10th generation from Ephraim. Such 
a supposition is entirely inconsistent with what the Scriptures 
have recorded, as to the generations of other persons, who 
were contemporaries of Joshua. Thus Achan, who was 
stoned to death, (Joshua vii. 18 — 26,) was the son of Carmi, 
of Zabdi, of Zerah, of Judah ; that is, he was in the 5th gen- 
eration from Judah. Nahshon, the prince of Judah, who 
married Rahab, was the 6th generation from Judah; viz. 1. 
Judah, 2. Pharez, 3. Hezron, 4. Ram, 5. Amminadab, 6. 
Nahshon.-j- The daughters of Zelophehad, whose claim is 
recorded in Numb, xxvii., in the 40th year from the Exodus, 
were the 6th in descent inclusive, from INIanasseh; viz. 

* We have similar forms of expression in Englisli, — Postboy, — lad, 
applied to persons of all ages. 

t I Chron. ii. 4—10. Mattli. i. 3, 4. 



55 



2. Macliir, 3. Gilead, 4. Heplier, 5, Zeloplieliad, 6. liis 
daughters. 

We are informed in Numb. xxyi. 35, that the tribe of 
Ephraim was composed of three families, named from his 
three sons, Shuthelah; Becher, the same probably as the 
Bered of 1 Chron. vii. 20, and Tahan, whose name is found 
in the 25th verse of the same chapter. In the 20th and 21st 
verses of that chapter of Chronicles, we have the names of 
9 individuals, who were all properly the sons of Ephraim, for 
the conjunction Yau 1 between each name, has the efiect of 
conjoining- them all to Shuthelah, as being, equally mth him, 
procreated from the body of Ephraim. In our present He- 
brew copies it appears, indeed, as if there were two of the 
name of Shuthelah; but, in the Greek copies, they are 
wTitten differently ; viz. Sothalath and Sotheleh, as they are 
pointed differently in the Hebrew. The first Tahat, in ver. 
20, is in the Greek Thaath^ and the second Tahat, is Saath. 
It, therefore, appears that some error has here crept into tlie 
Hebrew text, confounding names originally different. 

In the 21st verse, we are informed that certain of these 
sons of Ephraim, (how many, does not distmctly appear,) 
were slain by the men of Gath, in some predal incursion to 
take away their cattle in the land of Goshen. Ephraim, 
after mourning long for them, had another son, whom he 
called Beriah; a daughter, Sherah, whose descendants built 
certain cities in Canaan ; and then other sons, Rephah and 
Resheph, Telah and Tahan. The conjunction Vau i which 
is inserted between each of these names, still marks them to 
be the sons of Ephraim. But when Tahan is mentioned, of 
whom sprang one of the great subdivisions of the tribe of 
Ephraim, and Joshua himself, the sacred annalist immediately 
changes the idiom of the Hebrew, by dropping the conjunc- 
tion, and tells us, that Laadan was his, namely, Tahan's son, 
and so on to Joshua, the 6 th generation from Tahan inclu- 
sive; and, therefore, the 7th from Ephraim, and 8th from 
Joseph. 

Let us next inquire into the probable date of the birth of 



56 



Talian, tlie progenitor of Joshua. It is generally agreed, 
that Jacob's family went into Egypt 215 years before the 
Exodus. Joseph stood in the presence of Pharaoh at the age 
of 30 ; * and, before the years of famine, both his sons were 
born. If we suppose Ephraim to have been born in the 5th 
year of plenty, since it was the 2d year of famine when 
Jacob went into Egypt,f Ephraim must then have been 4 
years of age, and his father about 40. Now, it appears pro- 
bable, that the calamity which befell the family of Ephraim, 
was not till he was considerably advanced in life ; and his 
father Joseph, in the extremity of age, and, therefore, his 
inflnence declining. Joseph died in the year 143 before the 
Exodus; we may, therefore, suppose this event to have oc- 
curred about the year 150 before the Exodus, at which time 
Ephraim was 68, and may place the birth of Tahan about 
the year 143, nearly coetaneous with the death of Joseph. 
Dr Hales shows, that very early marriages were usual among 
the sons of Jacob, insomuch, that Judah and Pharez were 
both fathers at the age of 15, and Asher and Benjamin about 
the same period of life.f Now, after the losses which had be- 
fallen the tribe of Ephraim, there must have been a more 
than common anxiety to make up their numbers, and this 
would lead to marriages quite as early. If, then, we even 
suppose Ephraim's sons to have been slain in the extreme age 
of Joseph, and Tahan to have been born about the time al- 
ready mentioned; and further, that Joshua, the 6th in descent 
from Talian inclusive, was born 53 years before the Exodus, 
there remains a period of 90 years for 5 generations, being 
18 for each; which, under the peculiar circumstances of that 
tribe, is quite sufficient to justify our previous conclusions 
with respect to the age of Joshua at the Exodus. According 
to this view, his grandfather, Elishama, who was the captain 
of the host of Ephraim, § must have been near 90 years of 
age, and his father. Nun, more than 70. Joshua himself, at 



" Gen. xli. 4G. 

X Hales, vol. ii. p. 145. 



t lb. xlv. 6. 
§ Numb. ii. 18. 



57 



53, was in the time of life fittest for the duties of a com- 
mander in active warfare : whereas, in that period of the 
world, when years were alwa\"S accounted a necessary quali- 
fication for supreme military authority, it is scarcely to be 
supposed, that he would have received the command of the 
army, in the battle with Amalek, at the early age of 45. 

I proceed next to examine the events recorded in the first 
two and last five chapters of Judges, in order to show the 
perfect harmony vrhich exists between the date which I have 
adopted for the death of Joshua, and the history of the in- 
tervening period, to the beginning of the 1st Servitude. 

It is plain that Josephus dates the commencement of the 
anarchy, immediately after the death of Joshua. His words, 
as rendered by "Whiston, are, after the death of Joshua, 
" for eighteen years in all, the multitude had no settled form 

of government, but were in an anarchy." The word an- 
archy does not here signify the absence of all social order, 
but simply of a national government; and we have seen, 
that Hudson renders it, populus non habuit supremum ma- 
" gisuatum:" The people had not a chief magistrate. The 
inquiry in Judg. i. 1, Who shall go up for us against the 
Canaanites frst. to fght against tliem implies just such a 
state of things as the want of a supreme national government. 
The treaty of alliance, if such it may be called, between 
Judah and Simeon, shows the same. It was during this state 
of affairs, and probably very soon after the death of Joshua, 
that the occurrences, recorded in the last chapter of Judges, 
took place.* The history of the introduction of idolatry 
into the tribe of Dan, proves that, till then, the tribes had 
remained free from national idolatry, although it may be 
gathered from Joshua xxiv. 23, that the principles of idolatry 
were secretly working even in his time, or as B. Patrick sup- 
poses, they already had their household gods, Penates. 

In the next place, the prompt assemblage of the whole 

* Scott says, on Judges xix. 1, That it could not be long after the 
death of Joshua/" that these events took place. 

H 



congregation before tlie Lord in Mizpeli, to avenge the 
wickedness of Gibeali; their ardent zeal in that matter; 
their weeping before the Lord when discomfited before Ben- 
jamin, (Judges XX. 26) ; and more than all, their deep re- 
pentance and sorrow that one tribe was lacking in Israel, 
chap. xxi. 2, do all show that the principles of piety had yet 
a strong hold of the hearts of the people, and, therefore, 
that this occurrence must be referred to a very early period. 
In confirmation of which, we learn that it was in the high 
priesthood of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar. Now, Aaron 
died at the age of 123, in the 39th year of the Exodus, 
(Numb, xxxiii. 39.) His son Eleazar might, therefore, at 
his father's death, be from 83 to 90 years old ; and as the 
tribe of Levi was not represented by the twelve spies, and did 
not join in the rebellion recorded in Numb, xiv., it was not 
included in the sentence of excision upon all above 20 years, 
which Moses, in Deut. ii. 14, confines to the men of war. 
Eleazar, therefore, entered the land when he was between 84 
and 90 ; and his age, at the death of Joshua, was between 
100 and 107, and he died soon after him. He was succeeded 
by Phinehas, then, perhaps, between 60 and 65 years old. 
Phinehas was, therefore, from 30 to 35 years younger than 
Caleb, who, at the division, was 85, and now 95 ; and he 
was 20 or 25 years older probably than Othniel, brother's son 
of Caleb, who survived the death of Joshua 58 years, namely, 
18 years to the end of the 1st Servitude, and 40 years to the 
end of his own administration. These reasons make it cer- 
tain, that Phinehas himself must have outlived the 1st Ser- 
vitude, unless we are to suppose he was cut off before 80 
years of age, which, considering his eminent righteousness, 
is not likely. 

It thus appears that the elders, mentioned in Joshua xxiv. 
31, and Judges ii. 7, as having overlived Joshua, during 
whose days Israel continued to serve the Lord, did not in- 
clude those of the same generation as Phinehas and Othniel, 
seeing, that in the time of these two eminent persons, Israel 
passed tlirough the first Servitude, before v»hicl), they sinned 



59 



and served Baalim, {Judges iii. 7.) Tliese elders were, 
therefore, those of the former generation ; who had seen and 
remembered the redemption out of Egypt; who were under 
18 years of age at the Exodus, and thus not included in the 
sentence of excision, and who were not under 12, for then 
they would be counted as infants, and as not ha™g seen 
these great events. Tlie yoimgest of them vrere 52 years at 
the passage of Jordan, and the oldest of them 59. They 
were, consequently, at the death of Joshua, from 69 to 75 years 
of age. Among these elders Vv'e must also count Caleb, who, 
at the death of Joshua, was 95 years old; and probably others 
of the tribe of Le^d, who were as old, and not beino- included 
in the sentence of excision, were permitted to enter the land.^ 
There is, therefore, no improbability in supposing, that all 
these elders died m the 10 years foUo^^ing the decease of 
Joshua,f for it is not to be supposed, that the age of 110 
years, to which individuals so eminent as Joshua and Eleazar 
attained, was then the usual measiu-e of life. If it be true 
that the 90th Psalm was penned by Moses, then even in his 
time 70 and 80 years had become the usual diu^ation of life, 
probably vdih more exceptions in favour of persons eminent 
for righteousness, than in later ages. 

Let it be further observed, that as it has been shovni al- 
ready, that the period of anarch^' of Josephus begins fi'om 
the death of Joshua, it is plainly coetaneoiis v\-ith that of the 
elders who overlived him.T As they died oil, things, without 

* The writers of the Ancient Universal History understand these elders 
to be the survivors of the 70 elders ; (see Numb. xi. 25,) and if, as is 
probable, the greater part of these were of the tribe of Levi, then at the 
death of Joshua they might be not much under 100 years of age. 

t Dr Gill supposes that this is not to be strictly interpreted, as if every 
individual of them was dead, but the greater part — the body of the elders. 

I It may, therefore, be inferred, that Usher and his followers do en- 
tirely err, in supposing the period of anarchy (or misrule, as Dr Usher 
calls it in his xlnnals, whereas it has been shown to be simply the ab- 
sence of a supreme government,) followed the death of Joshua, and "the 
elders icho outlived him.''' It has been proved to have begun at his 
death, according to the words of Josephus himself, and, therefore, it 



60 



doubt, grew worse and worse, and the body of the nation 
became more and more estranged from the piety of their fa- 
thers. Of the rapidity of this change we need no further 
evidence than the fact already noticed, that the first Servi- 
tude, under Cushan-Rishathaim, began 48 years before the 
death of Othniel, who, being the brother's son of Caleb, was, 
as we have seen, probably not more than 20 or 25 years 
younger than Phinehas. 

I shall, in conclusion, olfer some general remarks. — When 
I entered on the investigation of this portion of the Scrip- 
tural Chronology, of w^hich the results were first laid before the 
public in the paper now reprinted in the Appendix 11. I had 
formed no system, and was, therefore, not aware where I 
should be led. The conclusions at which I did arrive, and 
the manner in which, from the text of the Scriptures, I was 
enabled to bring out St Paul's period of 450 years, from the 
division to the death of Eli, and Josephus's Chronology of 
612 years, from the Exodus to the 4th of Solomon, greatly 
surprised me. The coincidence, which has lately been dis- 
covered by me, betw^een my Chronology and the Jewish sys- 
tem of Shemittahs, which will form the subject of the next 
chapter, was no less unexpected. And as it is in the nature 
of things impossible, that so many and different coincidences, 
all of them unforeseen when I entered on these inquiries, 
should have occurred to support and uphold a scheme, cover- 
ing an extent of more than 1700 years, from the Exodus to 
the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, unless it were 
the exact truth; I, therefore, certainly conclude, that the 
Chronology of this Work is the verity of the Scriptures. 

I intended that the foregoing remarks should have closed 
this chapter, but since they were written I have examined the 
Stromata of Clemens of Alexandria, with respect to this 
part of the sacred Chronology, and am now enabled to 

synchronizes with the time when the wars, recorded in the 1st chapter of 
Judges, took place, and when Caleb himself was yet aUve ; and it is ex- 
pressly said to have been in the priesthood of Phinehas, the son and siic- 
cessor_of Eleazar, Judges xx. 28. 



61 



add his name to tlie authorities mentioned in a former pag-e,* 
in support of the great leading principle of my own reason- 
ing, — that the period of the Judges, and, therefore, the Chro- 
nolog-y of that period, ended at the death of EK. Clemens 
first gives the length of each administration, beginning with 
Joshua, whom he states to have warred altogether 65 years, 
— twenty-Jive years of it after his entrance into the land, and 
adds, that, according to the book of Joshua, he succeeded 
Moses for the space of 27 years. He then enimierates the 
first four Servitudes, and six administrations, to that of Tolah, 
in exact harmony with the scheme given in this w ork, except 
that to Othniel he gives 50 years instead of 40, and the sum 
of the whole, to the end of Tolah's 23 years, is, inclusive of 
the 27 years of Joshua, exactly . , . . 316 years. 

He omits Jair altogether, and his remaining Chrono- 
logy, to Samuel, is as follows : Years. 

V. Servitude under Ammon, .... 18 
Jephthah 6 years, Ibzan 7 years, . . .13 

To Elon, whom he calls Ehrom, he allows 8 years 
instead of 10 ; and to Abdon, called by him 
Eglom, 8 years, 16 

VL Servitude, — Philistines, .... 40 

Sampson, 20 

Eh, 40 147 

463 

After giving Eli's administration, he says, " Samuel the 
" prophet followed him, and Saul reigned with them for 27 
" years," that is, if 1 rightly miderstand the meaning of the 
passage, Clemens intends to say that Saul reigned 9 years 
with Eli, and 18 with Samuel, after the death of Eli; for he 
adds in the next section, that Samuel died 2 years before 
Saul, and that he " anointed Saul to the kingdom, who first 
" reigned over Israel after the Judges, of whom the whole 
" amount, reckoning to Samuel, is 463 years, 7 months." 

It is plain, therefore, that Clemens concludes the Chrono- 



* See p. 4-2. 



62 



logy of the Judges at the death of Eli, thus sanctioning the 
principle which is the basis of my own reasoning, — that 
the death of Eli forms the proper termination of that great 
division of the national annals of Israel which St Paul com- 
prehends in liis period of 450 years. For, if we rectify the 
errors in the period of 463 years of Clemens, it will be found 
exactly to accord with St Paul's number. 

There is in the Clironology of Clemens an excess in the ad- 
ministration of Othniel of 10 years 

The 6th Servitude, and Sampson, are reckoned 40 years 

-|- 20 — 60, which is an excess of 20 

Total of excess, 30 

There is, on the other hand, a deficiency for Jair's ad- 
ministration, omitted ..... 22 years 

Elon's do., too short hy 2 

Total deficiency, .... — 24 

There remains an excess of 6 years. 

The result, then, of these corrections will be 463 — 6 = 457 
years, from the beginning of the administration of Joshua to 
the death of Eli ; and if we further deduct the 7 years, from 
the entrance into the land to the division, the remainder is 
450 years, being exactly St Paul's period. 

In the next period of Scriptural Chronology, Clemens al- 
lows no years for the separate administration of Samuel, as he 
makes it cotemporaneous with Saul's. He also omits the 7th 
Servitude of 20 years, and makes the reign of Saul only 20 
years. Pie is thus under the truth, for Samuel's administra- 
tion, 12 years -f 20 for the 7th Servitude -f 20 for Saul 
= 52 years ; but, as we have already seen, there is an excess 
of 6 years in the former period of 463 years, therefore 52 
years deficiency — 6 of excess = 46 of deficiency in his 
whole Chronology, from the death of Moses downwards ; and 
keeping this in view, we shall find that all his periods are 
computed accordingly. I shall give some proofs of this. 

The true Chronology, from the entrance into the land to 



63 



the death of David, according to the tables at the end of this 
Work, is B. c. 1599 1030 = . . . . 569 years 

Clemens, in the Stromata, Lib. 1. cli. xxi. § 112., gives as the 

length of that period, 523 years 

Difference, .46 years. 

According to the Chronology of this Work, the period from 
the birth of Moses, which was 80 years before the Exodus, 
or in B. c. 1719, to the death of Solomon, b. c. 990, was 
exactly 729 years 

In the Stromata, the same chapter, § 114, this interval is 

reckoned . . . 683 years 

Difference, as before, ... 46 years. 

According to the Chronology of this Work, the interval 
from the birth of Moses, b. c. 1719, to the destruction of the 
First Temple, B. c. 588, was .... 1131 years 

In the same chapter of the Stromata, $ 121, Clemens reckons 

this period 1085 years 

Difference, as before, ... 46 years. 

Now, as all these computations of Clemens are founded 
upon the fact, — that the length of the interval betw^een the 
death of Moses and the commencement of the 1st Servitude 
under Cushan-Rishathaim was 27 years, and to the end of 
that Servitude 35 years; and also upon the other circum- 
stance, — that the period of the Chronology of the Judges, 
reckoned by him 463 years, ended at the death of Eli, when 
I bring out St Paul's period of 450 years, measuring the 
same period from the division, it follows that the whole 
Chronology of Clemens confirms the leading principles of 
my reasoning in this chapter, — principles at which (to repeat 
an observation at the end of last chapter,) I arrived long be- 
fore I knew that such a testimony as that of Clemens existed. 



CHAP. VI. 



A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE TRUE CHRONOLOGY OF THE 
WHOLE PERIOD FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DESTRUCTION 
OF JERUSALEM BY THE ROMANS, AND OF THE CURTAILED 
SYSTEM OF THE JEWS ; WITH AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRIN- 
CIPLES UPON WHICH THEY PROCEEDED IN CURTAILING THE 
CHRONOLOGY, AND INTO THE RELATION OF THE SHEMIT- 
TAH, OR SABBATIC YEAR, TO THE TRUE AND CURTAILED 
CHRONOLOGIES RESPECTIVELY. 

In entering on the investigation now proposed, it is in the 
first place necessary to offer a recapitulatory summary of the 
whole of this period. 

We have seen that the following is the true Chronology 
from the Exodus to the Christian era. 

Years, Years. B. C. 

From the Exodus to the foundation of the Tem- 
ple, inchiding 3 years of Solomon, . . . 612 1639 

The remainder of the reign of Solomon is . .37 

From the accession of Rehoboam to the death of 
Ahaziah, . 93 

Thence to the death of Josiah, .... 288 

Thence to the end of the 10th of Zedekiah, . 21 

439 

Total from the Exodus to the destruction of the 

First Temple, 1051 588 

Thence to the Christian era, 588 

Total from the Exodus to the 1st year of Christ, . 1639 a, d. 

Add the interval to the destruction of Jerusalem, . 70 

Total from the Exodus to the destruction of Je- 
rusalem by the Romans, 1709 70 

And the two last periods being added, 588 -f- 70 = 658 



65 



years, from the destruction of the First to that of the Se- 
cond Temple. 

Lef us next take a view of the curtailed system of the Jews 
for the same periods. They make the Exodus in their year 
of the world 2448, and the foundation of the First Temple in 
the year 2928. 

The difference is . . . . . 480 years 

Thence to the destruction of the First Temple in their 
year 3338, . . . . . . . .410 

Total from the Exodus to the destruction of the 

First Temple, 890 years. 

Thence to the destruction of the Second Temple, in their 
year 3828,* are 490 years complete, but the year of the 
destruction being included, as it is in the foregoing 
computation of the true Chronology, (being therein 
the year of Christ 70,) this Jewish period becomes, on 
like principles, 491 current years, . . . .491 

From Exodus to the destruction of Second Temple, 1381 years. 

In entering', in the next place, into the inquiry as to the 
relation which the false, or curtailed Chronology of the Jews, 
has to the true Chronology of the above mentioned periods, 
we must carefully distinguish, between the principles upon 
which they proceeded in curtailing the true Chronolog)^, and 
the manner in which they afterwards divided and apportioned 
their amount of subtracted years, so as to give to their system, 
the greatest possible degree of plausibility. These things, 
being distinct in themselves, are not to be confounded, al- 
though the distinction is wholly overlooked by some of our 
leading writers on Chronology. Dr Hales and Dr Russell, 
for example, both tell us that the number in 1 Kings vi. 1. is 
spurious, but neither of them appears to have discerned its 
actual relation to the true Chronology. I have shown in the 
Appendix, No. II., f and in my Jubilean Chronology, J that 

* I take these dates from the learned work of Wolfius, Biblioth. 
Hebr^a, vol. i., Introduct. Address, p. 27, 28. See also Hales, vol. L 
p. 218. 

f Sect. V. 1. X that Work, p. 17, 18, 

I 



66 



the period of 480 years differs from the true Chronology pre- 
cisely 132 years, being the sum of the 7 Servitudes, or 131 
years + 1 year, which I suppose to have been subtracted from 
the 47 years from the Exodus to the division of the lands, be- 
cause I find in the scheme of Josephus a similar curtailment of 
1 year in this period. But when I look into the Seder 01am 
Rabba, as abridged by Dr Hales,* I find these 131 years are 
not all taken from the Servitudes, but are so divided in the 
subtraction, as to give to the scheme the fairest appearance 
possible. The whole contrivance, may be likened to that of 
a servant intrusted with the property of his master, who, hav- 
ing formed an extensive plan of robbery, takes a little from 
the various articles under his charge, where he conceives that 
the theft will pass unnoticed, rather than so much from any 
one thing, as to lead to certain detection. 

The difference between the true and curtailed Chronology 
of the remainder of the period to the destruction of the First 
Temple, is as follows : — 

True Chronology from the foundation to the destruction 

of the First Temple, as before, . . . 439 years. 

Jewish curtailed Chronology, . . . . 410 

Difference, 29 years. 

To this add the difference in the former period, 132 

Total period curtailed by the Rabbis from the Exodus 
to the destruction of the First Temple, . . 161 

The proof of the correctness of this computation is, that 
if we add to the amount of the Jewish curtailed Chronology, 
from the Exodus to the destruction of the 

First Temple, 890 years. 

The foregoing sum of the curtailment, . .161 

The total is exactly the true Chronology, as in p. 64, 1051 

I shall now tiu-n the attention of the reader to the most 
remarkable fact, that the period of 161 years, thus proved to 

* Vol. i. p. 219, 220. 



67 



have been subtracted by tlie Jews? being divided by 7, the 
quotient is 23 Shemittahs or Sabbaths of years, without a 
remainder; and it hence appears, that in curtailing the Chro- 
nology, from the Exodus to the destruction of the First 
Temple, they did it by Shemittahs or weeks. The reason 
of this is obvious. As the record of years by Shemittahs^has 
already been shown to have been essential to the national 
jurisprudence, there must have been handed down among 
them some traditionary knowledge of the relation which cer- 
tain great leading events of their history, as, for example, 
the destruction of Jerusalem, by Titus, had to the Shemit- 
tah ; and if, in curtailing the Chronology, they had not done 
it by weeks of years, they w^ould have disturbed their whole 
scheme of Shemittahs, and the fraud would have at once 
detected itself. But by subtracting whole weeks or Shemit- 
tahs, they entirely preserved the above relation, so that, as I 
shall afterwards show, and as the intelligent reader must al- 
ready have perceived, the relation of the year of the destruc- 
tion of the First Temple to the Shemittah, is the same in 
the curtailed and false, as in the true Chronology. In other 
words, the destruction of the First Temple, reckoning the 
Shemittahs from the Exodus, falls out in the same year of 
the Shemittah, in both the true and false Chronologies. Nor 
will it escape the attention of the discerning reader, that this 
circumstance does, in itself, afford a very strong presumptive 
argument for the exact truth of the Chronology, which is 
adopted in this work. This argument, indeed, rises to a mo- 
ral demonstration, as, I hope, will afterwards be made evident. 

In the next period, from the destruction of the First to 
that of the Second Temple, the true and curtailed Chrono- 
logies, and their diiferences, are as follows : — 

Years. 

The true Chronology being from the year b. c. 388, to the 
year of Christ 70 inclusive, 658 

The curtailed Chronology being from the Jewish year, 3338, 
to 3828, both years included as in calculating the true 
Chronology, ......... 491 

The difference is, ........ 167 



68 



This period being divided by 7 = 23 Sliemittalis, and 6 
years. Here, therefore, the Rabbis have violated, by 1 year, 
the principle upon v^hich they curtailed the Chronology of the 
former period, and we are to seek for the reason of this, in 
their determination to find the fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy 
of the 70 weeks, without reference to our Lord, by making- 
it measure the period between the destruction of the First 
and Second Temples ; and for this end, in utter contempt 
of all history, they make the interval, from the 4th of Da- 
rius, mentioned in Zech. vii. 1 — 5, being the year b, c. 518^ 
to the taking of Babylon by Seleucus, the successor of 
Alexander, in b. c. 312, to be only 40 years, cutting olf, by 
this one operation, 166 years. The remaining yewc they 
subtract, between the year of Christ 1, which they make 
in their year of the world 3760, and the date where they 
place the destruction of Jerusalem, viz. 3828, being in cur- 
rent time 69 instead of 70 years, the right Chronology of 
that interval ; and, by this double fraud, they make the de- 
struction of the Second Temple just 490 complete years, 
or 491 current years, after that of the First, and thereby 
they vainly suppose that they get quit of the application of 
the 70 weeks to Jesus of Nazareth.* 

In thus curtailing the true Chronology of this period, not 
by a series of complete Shemittahs, but of 23 Shemittahs, 
and 6 years, they, however, derange their own ancient and 
authentic calculation of Shemittahs, just 1 year. What de- 
vices they have fallen upon, to prevent the effect of this de- 
rangement, I will show afterwards. 

In the mean time, I proceed to the next point proposed 
to be considered in this chapter, namely, the relation of the 

* Since this was written, I learn that some Jewish writers, and among 
them, (as will afterwards be seen,) Maimonides, place the destruction of 
the Second Temple a year earlier, namely, only 490 current years from 
that of the First. They thus deduct 168 years, or 24 Shemittahs, exactly, 
from the true Chronology. This, however, is not their authorized sys- 
tem, against which all the arguments found below remain in force. 



69 



Shemittaii, or Sabbatic week of years, botli to tlie true and 
false, or curtailed Chronology. 

Here tlie first point of inquiry which presents itself, is 
from what epoch the Shemittahs were reckoned. Now, from 
a Hebrew Tract which has recently come into my possession, 
printed in London in the year 1794, entitled Q^DP nm an 
Explanation of the Times, I learn that the year of the Exodus 
is called by them the Great Jubilee. " The five feasts," 
says the author, " are called Times, and it is known 

" that they are all comprehended iZD'^miD in the number Se- 
" VEN. The Feast of the Passover is Seven Days. The 
" Feast of Weeks is after Seven Weeks. The New Year 
" is in the Seventh Month. The Feast of Tabernacles is 
" Seven Days. The Sabbath is the Seventh Day. The 

Shemittah is for Seven Years, and the Jubilee is for 
" Seven Shemittahs : also, the Exodus from Egypt was in 
" the year 2448, which was the year of the Great Jubilee, 
" as it is written in the Book Zohar." 

Now, if the year of the Exodus was that of the Great 
Jubilee, it is plain that it was also the Epoch from which 
their Shemittahs must have been reckoned. In confirmation 
of which, I find in Allix de LXX. Hebdomadibus, that the 
author of the Seder Olam Rabba, their popular and standard 
Work on Chronology, maintains that their first Sabbatic year 
was celebrated in the year 21 from the Exodus, and he hence 
computes their Jubilees. I shall confirm this afterwards, by 
a passage from Maimonides, given by Dr Lightfoot. 

Returning now to the consideration of the tradition of the 
Jews, mentioned in a former chapter, that both the First 
and Second Temples were destroyed in a year following a 
Shemittah, or Sabbath, I observe, that it has already been 
proved, by arguments founded on the Astronomical Canon of 
Ptolemy, that the destruction of the First Temple was in 
the year b. c. 588 ; and as that of the Second Temple was, 
according to unanimous consent, in the year of Christ 70 ; 
it follows, that the interval between the two destructions w^as 
exactly 658 current years, as already established. Now, this 



70 



period being divided by 7, gives 94 Shemitt3hs" without a re- 
mainder. This being tlie case, the destruction of both Tem- 
ples could not possibly have occurred in the same year of a 
Shemittah, since, when we compute by current time, in or- 
der to arrive again at the same year of a Shemittah, or at the 
same day of the week of days, 1 day or year must always be 
added to the Septenar}^, or series of Septenaries : * and, in 
order that the destruction of the two Temples should have 
fallen on the same year of the Shemittah, it would have been 
necessary that the interval should have been 659 instead of 
658, current years. The last period, however, being the 
real interval, it follows, that since, by a tradition of the syna- 
gogue, the truth of which I do not intend to dispute, as it is 
beyond controversy, the destruction of the Second Temple 
is pinned down to the year following a Shemittah, or, in other 
words, to the first year of a Sabbatic week of years ; there- 
fore, the destruction of the First Temple, 658 years before, 
must have been, not as the later Jews assert, in the first year 
of a Shemittah, but in the second year. Accordingly, in the 
true Chronology, the year b. c. 1639, being that of the Ex- 
odus, is the 1st Jubilee, and the 1st year of a Shemittah; 
and calculating thence to the end of the year before the de- 
struction of the First Temple, b. c. 589, the period, as al- 
ready established, is 1051 years, which, divided by 7 = 150 
Shemittahs and 1 year, and thus the year b. c. 590 is the 
150th Sabbath; the year b. c. 589 is the 1st of the 151st 
Shemittah, and the year following b. c. 588, being that of the 
destruction of the First Temple, is the 2d year of the same 
Shemittah. 

In the next place, calculating the Shemittahs on the basis 
of the curtailed Jewish Chronology of this period, we have 
before shown, that they made the interval from the Exodus in 
their year 2448 to the destruction of the First Temple, in 

* For the same reason, that in Music the same note, either higher or 
lower in the Scale, is the Octave, the same day or year in the Week, 
or Shemittah, is the Octave in Time. 



71 



tlie year 3338, to be 890 years. This number, however, let 
it be carefully observed, does not include the year 3338 it- 
self, but comes down to the end of the year before. Now, 
890 being divided by 7, the quotient is 127 Shemittahs and 
1 year, so that their year 3337 is the 1st of the 128th She- 
mittah, and the year 3338 being that of the destruction of 
the First Temple, is, as in the true Chronology, the 2d 
year of the Shemittah. Thus, therefore, it is evident that 
the false or curtailed system of the Jews does, by the abbre- 
■vdation having been effected in Shemittahs, or weeks of years, 
preserve untouched the true relation of the period of the 
destruction of the First Temple to the Sabbatic year. 

Let us, in the next place, carry on the same computation 
by Shemittahs to the year of the destruction of the Second 
Temple. We have already seen, that, in the true Chrono- 
logy, the interval between the destruction of the First and 
that of the Second Temple, is 658 years, which, being 
divided by 7, gives 94 Shemittahs exactly; and the first year 
of the series^ viz. b. c. 588, having been proved to be the 2d 
of a Shemittah, the year of Christ 70, the last of the series 
is, therefore, the 1st of a Shemittah, or the year after a 
Sabbath, which is in complete harmony with the Jewish tra- 
dition already mentioned in the 1st chapter,* as the test to 
which my Chronology was to be submitted, and, therefore, 
it comes from this trial with new evidence of its exact truth. 
And that this calculation exactly accords with that contained 
in my former Tract, will appear from the fact, that I therein 
state the year of Christ, 28, to be a Jubilee ;f and com- 
puting from that year inclusive, to A. d. 70, the interval is 
43 years current, or 6 Shemittahs and 1 year, so that the 
year 70 is the 1st of a Shemittah. 

With respect to the curtailed and spurious Chronology of 
the Jews for this period, I have already asserted, that by de- 
parting from their former principle of shortening this inter- 
val, from the destruction of the First to that of the Second 



* See p. 3. 



f See my Jubilean Chronology, p. 20. 



7-2 



Temple, by complete Sliemittahs, tliey liave deranged their 
own ancient and authentic series of Sabbatic weeks of years, 
just 1 year. I proceed to prove this. 

Their year 3338 being that of the destruction of the First 
Temple, is, as has already been shown, the 2d of a Shemit- 
tah. We have also discovered, that from that year to the de- 
struction of the Second Temple, they make 491 current 
years, which being divided by 7, = 70 Shemittahs and 1 
year. Therefore, the last year of this period, being their 
year 3828, falls out, not on the 1st of a Shemittah, as is re- 
quired by the authentic tradition of the Synagogue, and is 
confirmed by the true Chronology, but it is the 2d year of a 
Shemittah. 

The Rabbis have, however, devised a way to prevent this 
derangement, and in order to show what it is, I shall bring- 
forward a very valuable passage from their learned doctor, 
Maimonides, as quoted by Dr Lightfoot. 

" Israel," says he, " numbered seventeen Jubilees from their 
" coming into the land to their going out; and the year that 
" they went out, when the Temple was first destroyed, was 
" the going out of a seventh year of rest,* and it was the 
" thirty-sixth year of the Jubilee. For the First Temple 
" stood four hundred and ten years, and, when it was destroy- 

ed, this counting ceased. 

" The Second Temple stood four hundred and twenty 
" years, and in the seventh year from its building Ezra came 
" up, and from that year they began to count again, and made 

the thirteenth year of the Second Temple a year of rest, 
" and counted seven rests, and hallowed the fiftieth year, al- 
" though there was no Jubilee under the Second Temple. 
" The destruction of the Second Temple was in the going 
" out of a seventh year, and it was the fifteenth year of the 
" ninth Jubilee." Maymond in Shemittah, per. 10, and 
Erach in, per. 2.f 

* The going out of a year of rest means the year after a Sabbath, i. e. 
the first of a Shemittah. 

t Cited by Dr Lightfoot. Works, vol. i., London, 1684. 



73 



Before entering" on the consideration of this passage, I 
must request the reader carefully to bear in mind, that the 
ciu:tailed Jewish Chronology had no real existence in the an- 
nals of the nation, but is wholly a device of their Rabbis 
since their national annals have terminated, by their disper- 
sion among all nations, in order to hide, and deface, and mu- 
tilate these annals, for the purpose of proving that Jesus of 
Nazareth appeared at too early a period of the w^orld, to an- 
swer to the character of the Messiah ; and more especially, of 
disproving the relation of Daniel's prophecy of the Seventy 
Weeks, to his death upon the cross. 

I shall say next, that this spurious Chronology, being an 
artful abridgment of the true, has still such a relation to it, 
that, while it may be expected to possess sufficient plausibility 
to deceive the ignorant, it cannot but contain internal evi- 
dence of the fraud. Having made these preliminary re- 
marks, I proceed next to inform the reader, that the first part 
of the foregoing passage from Maimonides, when closely ana- 
lyzed, shows what is the device fallen upon by the Jews to 
prevent the derangement of their Shemittahs in the last pe- 
riod of their national history, viz. at the destruction of the 
Second Temple ; and the second part of the passage enables 
us to detect and prove the fraud. 

The key to open the whole passage, is that which I have 
already stated from Dr Allix,— that the Jews kept the 1st 
Sabbatic year in the 21st from the Exodus. Now, the Jew- 
ish date of the Exodus being their year 2448, if to this we 
add 20 years, we are brought to the year 2468 as the 21st 
year, and the 1st Sabbath which was kept by them. The 
following year, 2469, is therefore the 22d from the Exodus, 
and the 1st of a Shemittah; and thence to the end of the 
year 3337, the year before the destruction of the First 
Temple, are 869 years, which, divided by 49, the length of 
the Jubilee, the quotient is 17 Jubilees and 36 years, in ex- 
act accordance with the number given by Maimonides. The 
last year, 3337, is, however, on this computation, the 1 st of 
a Shemittah, and the year following, being that of the de- 

K 



74 



struction of the Temple, turns out exactly as in the true 
Chronology, in the 2d of a Shemittah, and not, according to 
the assertion of Maimonides, the 1st of a Shemittah; and the 
difference between his calculation and that now made, is, that 
he makes this period of 17 Jubilees and 36 years expire a 
year later than is the truth, viz. in the year of the destruction 
of the Temple, whereas it comes out in the year before. 

The device of the Rabbis appears, therefore, to have been, 
that either by beginning their series of Shemittahs a year too 
late, i. e, from the 23d instead of the 22d after the Exodus, 
or by a process of legerdemain, which is not difficult in these 
calculations, confounding current wdth complete time, and in- 
cluding the year 3338, being that of the destruction of the 
First Temple, as the last of the series of 869 years, where- 
as it is the 870th from the 22 d after the Exodus, they have 
in fact cancelled 1 year from this series of Shemittahs, and 
made it out fraudulently, and against the truth, that the First 
Temple was destroyed in the 1st year of a Shemittah, in- 
stead of the 2d, as it really w^as. Next, calculating from the 
year of its destruction as the 1st of a Shemittah, to their year 
3828, the period of 491 current years, they thus make the 
destruction of the Second Temple to fall also in the 1st 
year of a Shemittah, according to their own tradition of the 
fact, as confirmed by the true Chronology. 

I proceed now to show, that the second part of the extract 
from Maimonides enables us to detect and prove the above 
mentioned act of fraud, inasmuch as it contains the most irre- 
fragable evidence that the destruction of the First Temple 
was, according to their authentic national annals, in the second 
year of a Shemittah, and not the firsts as they now pretend. 

Maimonides tells us, that from the 7th year after the re- 
building of the Temple,* they began to count again, and 
made the 13th year a year of rest. Now, their date of the 
rebuilding of the Temple is the year 3408, which is 70 com- 

* The story of Ezra going up in the 7th year appears to be a fable. 
He did not receive his commission from iVrtaxerxes till 60 years later. 



75 



plete years, or 71 current, after its destruction in 3338. The 
former of these years answers to the 4th of Darius Hystaspes, 
mentioned in Zech. vii. 1, 5., or the year b. c. 518, which was 
exactly 70 years complete, or 71 current, from the destruc- 
tion of the Temple in b. c. 588. Now, since the destruction 
of the former Temple was, as already proved, in the 2d of a 
Shemittah, the year b. c. 518, being- the 71st current from it, 
w^as also the •2d of a Shemittah, and hence we see wdiy they 
made the 13th year of the Temple a year of rest, because it 
really was so in the true series of the Shemittahs, counted 
from the Exodus, as will appear from the following table. 



I year of World. 


Year before Clirist. 


Year of 2d Temple. 


Year of Shemittah. 


3408 


518 


1st year. 


2d year. 


3409 


517 


2 


3 


3410 


516 


3 


4 


3411 


515 


4 


5 


3412 


514 


5 


6 


3413 


513 


6 


7 Sabbath. 


3414 


512 


1 

7 


1 


3415 


511 


8 


2 


3416 


510 


9 


3 


3417 


509 


10 


4 


3418 


508 


11 


5 


3419 


507 


12 


6 


3420 


506 


13 


7 Sabbath. 



But had the First Temple, as Maimonides pretends, been 
destroyed in the 1st of a Shemittah, then it is plain that the 
year b. c. 518, or Jewish year 3408, being the 71st current 
year from it, would also have been the 1st of a Shemittah, 
and, therefore, the 14th, instead of the 13th year, counting 
from it, would have been the Sabbath. This fact, then, un- 
wittingly mentioned by Maimonides, that the 13th year of 
the Second Temple was the Sabbath, does evidently de- 
monstrate that the First Te3iple was destroyed, according* 
to the Chronology established in this Work, on the 2d, and 
not the 1st year of a Shemittah. 

Before I leave the discussion of this passage of Maimoni- 
des, it w^in be proper to show that his calculation of the Ju- 



76 



bilees, after the captivity in Babylon, is just a year short, ac- 
cording to the dates of the Seder 01am Rabba. For from 
the 14th year of the Second Temple, answering to the Jew- 
ish year 3421, which is the 1st of a Shemittah, to the de- 
struction of that Temple in 3828, according to the curtailed 
Chronology, are 408 current years, which divided by 49 = 
8 Jubilees and 16 years, being a year more than Maimonides 
reckons, since, as already has been seen, his calculation is 8 
Jubilees and 15 years. Maimonides appears to have disco- 
vered, that, reckoning from the above year, the computation 
of the Seder Olam Rabba must inevitably bring out the de- 
struction of the Second Temple, contrary to the truth and 
the genuine tradition of the Synagogue, in the 2d year of a 
Shemittah ; and, to prevent this result, he cuts olF 1 year from 
the standing of that Temple, according to the reckoning of 
the Synagogue, making it to be destroyed in their year 3827, 
which is, according to his own computation, the 1st of a She- 
mittah, instead of 3828. Thus far he certainly restores con- 
sistency to the curtailed Chronology, although he himself re- 
mains still chargeable with the anachronism of placing the de- 
struction of the First Temple in the 1st year of a Shemittah, 
but, as already said, he, in the second part of the passage 
quoted from him, detects and exposes his own error. Ac- 
cording to the scheme of Maimonides also, the Chronology 
of the Synagogue, after the captivity, is shortened from the 
truth just 168 years, or 24 Shemittahs. 

We have already seen,* that the year b. c. 590, when, as 
mentioned in Jerem. xxxiv., Nebuchadnezzar king of Baby- 
lon sat down before Jerusalem, was a Sabbatic year, and 
that it comes out accordingly in the Chronology of this 
Work. I shall now call the attention of the reader to 
another remarkable event in the Scriptural history, which 
bears internal evidence of having been accomplished in 
a Sabbatic year. The narrative of it will be found in 2 
Kings xi. 4 — 16. and 2 Chron. xxiii. 1, 2. It cannot be 
denied that in the period preceding the captivity in Baby- 

* See p. 70. 



77 



Ion, the body of the Jewish nation appears to have entirely 
neglected the year of Sabbatic rest to their lands. Yet, as 
there was even in degenerate Israel, in the days of Elijah, 
7000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal, we cannot but 
conclude that there remained in Judah a much larger remnant 
of true worshippers, and they, without doubt, w^ere strictly 
obedient to the law of the Sabbatic year. Jehoiada the high 
priest, therefore, who, at the period referred to in the pas- 
sages above mentioned, meditated the overthrow of queen 
Athaliah, who had usurped the kingdom, and the restoration 
of the royal infant of David's house to the throne of his fa- 
thers, knowing that the Sabbatic year would afford him greater 
facilities of assembling, without suspicion, a body of the Le- 
vites and the bravest of Judah, the most pious, and, therefore, 
the most loyal to the house of David, at Jerusalem, waited, as 
we are told, till the seventh year^ and then strengthened him- 
self for the noble enterprise which he soon afterwards boldly 
executed. Now, according to the Chronology of this Work, 
the 7th year for which Jehoiada waited, and in which he re- 
stored Joash the rightful king, was b. c. 891, and it is a Sab- 
bath or Shemittah.* 

The intelligent reader will at once perceive that it were 
impossible, in the nature of things, that these various coinci- 
dences between the Jev/ish Shemittahs and the Chronology 
of this Work, should have happened to confirm any system 
which is not the exact truth ; for the test of the Shemittah is 
of so strict a nature, that, as has already been observed, f it 
will not bear the deviation of a single year. But, in order 
further to show the justice of this remark, I shall now submit 
the schemes of some of our standard writers on Chronology 
to the same test. 

* If the reader desires to put this to the test, let him consider that b. c. 
1639, the year of the Exodus, is the 1st of a Shemittah, the year 1640, 
therefore, is a Shemittah or Sabbath ; now, from b. c. 1640 to b. c. 891 
are 749 complete, or 750 current years. Divide by 7 the last number, 
makes 107 Shemittahs + 1 year, therefore 891 is a Sabbath. 

t See Chap. I. 



78 



Dr Hales makes tlie Exodus in b. c. 1648, and as it is the 
Jubilee year and 1st of a Sliemittali, counting tlience to the 
year b. c. 588, inclusive, the corrected date of the destruction 
of the First Temple, the interval is 1061 years, which, di- 
vided by 7 = 151 Shemittahs and 4 years, the year b. c. 588 
turns out, therefore, the 4th of a Shemittah instead of the 2d, 
as it ought to be. In the next place, the year of Christ, 70, 
being that of the destruction of the Second Temple, comes 
out on this scheme as the 3d of a Shemittah instead of the 
1st. Once more, the 7th year of Athaliah, or ]st of Joash, 
being b. c. 891, which 1 have shown to be a Sabbath, comes 
out the 2d of a Shemittah. Nor will the scheme of Dr Hales 
better endure the test, by taking his own date of the first 
Sabbatic year, b. c. 1589, as the foundation of our calcula- 
tion, for it will be seen that, computing from that year as a 
Sabbath, the year b. c. 588 is a Sabbath also, which is con- 
trary to truth.* The year b. c. 891, the 7th of Athaliah, 
will also be found, instead of a Sabbath, to be the 5th of a 
Shemittah, f and the year of Christ 70 will fall out as the 6th 
of a Shemittah instead of the 1st. 

Lastly, in reference to the scheme of Dr Hales, it will 
not, when compared with the curtailed Chronology of the 
Jews, be found to possess any such relation to it, as to show 
that it was the prototype which they had before their eyes, 
when they corrupted and shortened the Chronology. From 
the Exodus to the year of the destruction of the First Tem- 
ple, we have seen that the scheme of Dr Hales makes 1061 

* It is indeed true that Dr Hales' spurious date of the destruction of 
the First Temple, viz. b. c. 586, turns out on this scheme to be the 2d 
year of a Shemittah, but then the calculation is wide of the truth when 
carried forward to a. c. 70. It therefore utterly fails. 

f It here again happens that Dr Hales' 7th year of Athaliah, or 1st of 
Jehoash, b. c. 889, is, on his scheme, a Sabbath, but then, as already said, 
and as will more fully appear afterwards, his scheme fails when the calcu- 
lation of Shemittahs is carried forward. Besides, it has already been shown 
in Chaps. II. and III. of this Work, that he errs 2 years in the Chrono- 
logy from B. c. 897 to b. c. 588. His date of the 1st of Jehoash, b. c. 889 
is therefore spurious. 



79 



years. The Jewish curtailed Chronology is 891 years. The 
dilFerence is 170 years, or 24 Shemittahs and 2 years, instead 
of any number of Shemittahs without a remainder. 

Dr Russell, in his Connection of Sacred and Profane His- 
tory, computes the Chronology from the Exodus to the 
Christian era, as follows : — 

Years. 

From Exode to the Foundation of the Temple, . 592 

From foundation to destruction, 430 
Thence to the Christian era, ..... 586 

1608 

The error of 2 years in the third period being corrected, it 
becomes 586 + 2 = 588, and the secojid is reduced to 428 
years ; and the interval from the Exodus to the destruction of 
the Temple, is 1020 years complete, or 1021 current. 
Reckoning from the Exodus as the 1st of a Shemittah, it 
will be found, that, on this scheme, the year b. c. 588, when 
the First Temple was destroyed, falls out in the 6th of a 
Shemittah, and the year of Christ 70 being that of the de- 
struction of the Second Temple in the 5th of a Shemittah, 
which are both, therefore, wide of the truth. The difference 
between this Chronology and the Jewish curtailed system of 
the same period, from the Exodus to the destruction of the 
First Temple, is 1020 — 890 = 130 years, which, divided 
by 7, gives 18 Shemittahs and 4 years, manifesting clearly 
that this was not the original from which the Scribes formed 
their curtailed system. Lastly, on the scheme of Dr Rus- 
sel, the 7th of Athaliah, when Jehoiada restored Joash to 
the throne of his fathers, falls out, after correcting the fore- 
going error of 2 years, in b. c. 880, wdiich, reckoning the 
Shemittah from the Exodus, is not a Sabbath, but the 1st of 
a Shemittah. 

In the next place, it will be found, that if the foregoing 
tests be applied to the scheme of Dr Usher, which has, in 
modern times, been universally received as the true Chrono- 
logy, they wholly overthrow it. Usher places the Exodus 



80 



in the year B. c. 1491. Thence to b. c. 588 inclusive, are 
904 current years, which, divided by 7 = 129 Shemittahs 
and 1 year. And as the Exodus is the 1st of a Shemittah, 
the year b. c. 588 falls out to be also the 1st of a Shemittah, 
and calculating thence forward to the year of Christ 70, the 
destruction of the Second Temple falls in a Shemittah or 
Sabbatic year, contrary to the tradition of the Synagogue. 
The 7 th of Athaliah, or 1st of Joash of Judah, in this scheme, 
is found in the year b. c. 878, which, reckoning from the 
Exodus, is not a Sabbatic year, but the 5th year of a She- 
mittah. 

Should it be answered by the advocates of Usher's Chro- 
nology, that this is no argument against it, seeing that Usher 
does not acknowledge the principle of computing the She- 
mittahs from the Exodus, but reckons his first Sabbath in 
the year 48 from the Exodus, or his year b. c. 1445, whence 
he computes the Jubilees, I reply, that though upon this 
foundation, the year b. c. 878, being that, according to Usher, 
of the restoration of Jehoash, does turn out a Sabbath, yet 
if we calculate forward from that year, it will lead us to 
the erroneous conclusions, that the year b. c. 591 is a Sab- 
bath, the year b. c. 588, when the First Temple was de- 
stroyed, the 3d of a Shemittah, and the year a. c. 70 the 
2d of a Shemittah ; all which results deviate 1 year from the 
truth. But were it not so, it would be a sufficient argument 
against this scheme to say, that in commencing his Shemittahs 
from the 48th year after the Exodus, or the 8th after the 
entrance into Canaan, Usher is opposed to the voice of the 
Jewish people, who all date their national Chronology from 
the Exodus; and though there is a difference of opinion 
among them, as to the first Sabbatic year which was actually 
observed, there was no difference, but the most perfect unan- 
imity, as to the Septenaries being numbered from the Exo- 
dus. Usher's whole system of the Jubilees, therefore, and the 
Shemittahs, is without authority, and altogether arbitrary. 
Finally : his interval between the Exodus and the destruction 
of the First Temple, is b. c. 1491 — 588= 903 years. 



81 



wliicli, being compared with tlie length of the same period, 
according to the curtailed Chronology of the Synagogue, the 
difference is 903 — 890 = 13 years, which is 1 Shemittah 
and 6 years ; and it, therefore, appears, for the reasons already 
given, that the Chronology of Usher was not the original 
the Rabbis had before them when they formed their curtailed 
system. 

On the other hand, the scheme adopted in this Work, 
wdiich answers exactly all the tests wdiich have been applied 
to it, and the traditions of the Synagogue, and precisely, 
and without a single deviation, corresponds with their author- 
ized system of Shemittahs, manifestly bears all the characters 
of the original, which the Scribes cut down to the measure 
of their present system. It is, therefore, the true and au- 
thentic Chronology of the Scriptures. Moreover, it com- 
mends itself as the truth, because, from the Exodus to the 
destruction of the First Temple, it strictly adopts the num- 
bers of the years in the Books of Judges, and Kings, and 
Chronicles, as the only standard, excepting only the two 
years of correction in the reign of Jehoram of Judah, which 
rests on tbe authority of the Aldine edition of the Seventy, 
as well as simdry texts of our Hebrew Bibles ; and, excepting 
also the spurious number in 1 Kings vi. 1, which is rejected 
on the authority of the Apostle Paul, Acts xiii. 20 ; but 
while it is rejected, its exact relation to the original and au- 
thentic Chronology, is show in this scheme, which is not 
done, and cannot be done in the other schemes which have 
been review^ed, because it possesses no such relation to them, 
seeing they are not the original from which it was taken. 

Since the wdiole of the foregoing argument was wTitten, 
I have consulted Hudson's edition of Josephus, in the original 
Greek, which contains much more copious indexes than the 
English translation by Whiston, and have, by means of them, 
obtained new^ and powerful evidence from the pages of Josephus 
in corroboration of the system of Shemittahs adopted in this 
Work. Josephus, in bis Antiquities, mentions two different 
events which occurred in Sabbatic years. The first is to be 

L 



8^ 



found in B. xiii. cliap. viii. 1. Simon, prince and high priest 
of the Jews, having been treacherously murdered at a feast 
by his son-in-law, Ptolemy, John Hyrcanus, his third son, 
was chosen to the priesthood in his room, and soon after- 
wards marched against Ptolemy, who shut himself up in a 
fortress near Jericho, where he was besieged by John. Jo- 
sephus tells us, that as the siege was drawn out into length, 
that year in which the Jews use to rest came on, for the Jews 
observe this rest every seventh year. This event is placed by 
Prideaux and also Hales, in the year b. c. 135, which was, 
therefore, a Shemittah. Accordingly, it is one in the Chro- 
nology of this Work ; for if from b. c. 590, already proved 
to have been a Shemittah, we deduct b. c. 135, the difference 
is 455 years complete, which, divided by 7, is 65 Shemittahs 
without a remainder. On the other hand, the year of Christ 
28 has been shown to be a Jubilee, and, therefore, the 1st of 
a Shemittah. Now, to b. c. 135 add a. c. 28, the sum is 163 
years current, which, divided by 7, gives 23 Shemittahs and 2 
years, which brings out the year of Christ 28 exactly the 1st 
of a Shemittah. By this double calculation, then, it appears 
that B. c. 135 is a Sabbath. 

I am here also enabled to detect another error of Dr 
Hales. He asserts that b. c. 135 was a Sabbatical year,* 
and rests the proof of it upon the fact, that the year 
b. c. 163 had been proved in a former note to be Sabba- 
tical. On referring to that note, I find that his argument is 
as follows: "From the first general Sabbatical year, b. c. 1589, 
" subtracting b. c. 162, the remainder, 1427 years, gives the 
" length of the whole period inclusively, which, divided by 
" the Sabbatical period of seven years, leaves no remainder. 
" Therefore the last year, b. c. 163, was itself a Sabbatic 
" year."-|- Now, here are two gross errors: 1st, If we divide 
1427 by 7, it gives 203 Shemittahs and a remainder of 6 
years, instead of no remainder. 2d, In computing by current 
time, as Dr Hales here does, beginning any period with a Sab- 



* Vol. ii. p. 573, 



f Ibid. p. 558. 



83 



batic year, in order to arrive at a Sabbath again, we must add 1 
year to the number of septenaries, just as in counting from Sun- 
day to Sunday inclusively, the 2d Sunday is the 8th day. It 
vrill therefore, be found, that if b. c. 1589 was a Sabbath, then 
the year b. c. 161 is the 204th Sabbath from it,* and not, as 
Hales affirms, b. c. 163, which, on his scheme^ turns out the 
5th of a Shemittah. For similar reasons, it will be found, 
that on the scheme of Hales, viz. that b. c. 1589 was the 1st 
Sabbatic year, the year b. c. 135 is not a Sabbath, but the 
5th of a Shemittah, and that on that scheme the year b. c. 
133 is the Sabbath, for b. c. 1589 — b. c. 133 = 1456 7 
= 208 Shemittalis, without a remainder. How a Vvnriter of 
Dr Hales's deep learning and research fell into such errors it 
is difficult to conceive. That both the years b. c. 163 and 
135 are Shemittahs, or Sabbaths, is undeniable, and the last 
has already been proved to be so, but the error of Hales 
consists in falsely deducing this conclusion from the supposed 
Sabbatic character of the year b. c. 1589, whereas, in the 
true Chronology, the year b. c. 1591 is a Sabbath, and the 
year b. c. 1589 the 2d of a Shemittah. Now, b. c. 1591 — 
B. c. 135 = 1456 years complete, which divide by 7, is ex- 
actly 208 Shemittahs, which again proves b. c. 135 to be a 
Sabbath, on the genuine scheme of this Work. 

The other event which is mentioned by Josephus as ha\dng 
happened in a Sabbatic year, is the taking of Jerusalem by 
Herod. It occurred, according to Prideaux and Hales, in 
the year b. c. 37, which, in the Chronology of this Work, is 
a Shemittah; for from b. c. 135, already proved to be a Sab- 
bath, deduct B. c. 37, the remainder is 98 years complete, 
which divided by 7 gives 14 Shemittahs without a remainder. 
The same result will follow by carrying forward the compu- 
tation from B. c. 37 to a. c. 28, which is a Jubilee year and 

* For from b. c. 1589 to b. c. 161, in current time, are 1429 years -f- 7 
= 204 Shemittahs and 1 year, therefore if b. c. 1589 was a Sabbath, b. c. 
161 was also a Sabbath. But, according to the true Chronology, b. c. 1589 
is the 2d of a Shemittah, and, therefore, b. c. 161 is also the 2d of a She- 
mittah. 



84 



1st of a Shemittali; for it will be found, that on the basis of 
the year b. c. 37 being a Sabbath, the year a. c. 28 comes 
out the 1st of a Shemittah. In a similar mode, viz. by cal- 
culating either backward or forward, the year b. c. 163, al- 
ready mentioned, which occurs in 1 Maccabees vi. 53. as a 
Sabbath, falls out accordingly in my Chronology, for in the 
tables at the end, the year b. c. 169 is marked as the 31st 
Jubilee, therefore b. c. 163 is the next Sabbath, being the 
7th year inclusive from it. Now, I request the reader par- 
ticularly to mark, that these tables were constructed more 
than a month before I was aware that the year b. c. 163 was 
mentioned in the above apocryphal book as a Shemittah ; and 
further, that my scheme of Jubilean Chronology, according 
to which all these coincidences, now first discovered by me, 
come out with the utmost precision, was given to the public 
nearly a year before this sentence is written. 

To conclude, it has been proved that the Chronology 
adopted in this Work touches the Sabbatic year, or Shemit- 
tah, at 8 different points of time, which are noted as Sabbaths 
in the Scriptures and Jewish writings, viz. the years b. c. 
891, 590, 520, 513, 506, 163, 135, and 37, and is in all of 
them found exactly to accord with the Jewish calendar of 
Shemittahs. It also coincides with that Calendar when strictly 
analyzed, as to the year of the Shemittah when the First 
Temple was destroyed, and also as to the year of the de- 
struction of the Second Temple, both in the national calen- 
dar and the tradition of the Synagogue. It likewise harmo- 
nizes with the testimony of Josephus in three passages of his 
works, as to the length of the period from the Exodus to the 
foundation of the Temple; and with the testimony of St 
Paul, Acts xiii. 20., as to the period from the division of the 
lands to the death of Eli ; and the result is, that it is demon- 
strated to be the exact Chronology of the Scriptures. 



85 



1. TABLE 

OF THE CHRONOLOGY OF ISRAEL, FROM THE EXODUS TO THE FOUN- 
DATION OF THE TEMPLE, IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF SOLOMON. 



Names. 


Events. 


Authorities. 


Jubilees, Sabbatic 
Years, and Years 
of Siiemittalis. 


Years 
Before 
Christ. 


Yearsof 
Events 
or Ad- 
minis- 
tra. 
tions. 


Moses. 




Egypt, Exodus from. 




I. Jubilee. 


1639 


40 


Joshua and 
Anarchy. 




Canaan, Entrance into. 
Canaan, Division of. 

End of period of the 7 
Elders, and Anarchy. ) 


C Num.xiii.23. 
< xiv. 24. Josh. 
Q xiv. 7 10. 

Josh. xxiv. 7 
29—31. 5 


II. Jubilee. 


1599^ 

1593) 

1590 
1573 


7 
20 


Cushan- > 
Rishathaim , 

Othniel. 




I. Servitude begins. 7 
— - ' ends. 5 


Judges iii. 8. 




1572 1 
1565 5 

1564) 
1541 C 
1525) 


8 




Administration begins. 
Administration ends. 


^ Judg. iii. 11. 


III. Jubilee. 


40 






II. Servitude begins. 
ends. 


^ Judg. iii. 14. 


Sabbatic year. 


1524 7 
1507 5 


18 












Ehud 1 
and 
Shamgar. 1 




Administration begins. 
Administration ends. 


^ Judg.iii. 80. 


Isty. of Shemittah. 

IV. Jubilee. 

V. Jubilee. 


1506") 
1492 ( 
1443 r 
1427 3 


80 


Canaanites. 




IIL Servitude P^f"^' 
( ends. 


7 Judges iv. 1 
S -3. 




1426 7 
1407 5 


20 


Deborah 

and 
Barak. 




Administration begins. 
Administration ends. 


1 Judg. V. 31. 


VL Jubilee. 
Istyr. of Shemittah. 


1406) 
1394 C 
1367) 


40 


Midian. 




IV, Servitude j ^T'' 
1 ends. 


1 Judg. vi. 1. 


Sabbatic year. 


1366 7 
1360 5 


7 


Gideon. 




{ Administration begins. 
C Administration ends. 


1 Judg.viii.28. 


1st y% of Shemittah. 
VIL Jubilee. ^ 


1359) 
1345 C 
1320) 


40 


Abimelech. 




Administration J 

( ends. 


1 Judg. ix. 22. 




1319 7 
1317 5 


3 

323 



86 













Yearsof 








Jubilees, Sabbatic 


Years 


Events 
or Ad. 
niin- 
istra- 




Events. 


Authorities. 


Years, and Years 


Before 









of Sliemittahs. 


Christ. 












323 


Tolah. 


Administration begins. 


Judg. X. 1, 2. 




1316 


23 




VIII. Jubilee. 


1296 




Jair. 


Administration begins. 


Judg. X. 3. 




1293 


22 


Ammonites. 


V. Servitude begins. 


— X. 7, 8. 




1271 


18 


Jephthah. 


Administration begins. 
Administration begins. 


— xi.6.xii.7. 




1253 


6 


Ibzan. 


— xii. 9. 


IX. Jubilee. 


1247 


7 


Elon. 


Administration begins. 


— xii. 11. 




1240 


10 


Abdon. 


Administration begins. 


— xii. 13, 14. 




1230 


8 


Philistines. 


VI. Servitude begins : it 


— xiii. 1. 




1222 


40 




continued 40 years ; 20 
years of which Sampson 














X. Jubilee. 


1198 






judged Israel, and in his 


— XV. 20. 










days was X. Jubilee. 










Eli. 


Administration begins. 

At his death, B. c. 1143, 
ends St Paul's 450 years, 
Acts xiii. 20, computed 
from division of Canaan 
as above, B. c. 1693. 


1 Sam. iv. 18. 


XI. Jubilee. 


1182 
1149 


40 


Philistines. 


VII. Servitude, while the 
Ark was at Kirjath- 












jearim. 


1 Sam. vii. 1. 




1142 


20 


Samuel. 


Administration after vic- 


} Joseph. An. 




1122 


12 




tory at Mizpeh begins. 


I B. vi. ch. 13. 




Saul. 


Reign begins. 


Acts xiii. 21. 




1110 


40 




] Josephus, B. 
vii. ch. XV. 

says he lived 










David born. 


> 70 years ; 
thereforehe 
was born in 
this year. 


XII. Jubilee. 


1100 




David. 


Reign begins. 


2 Sam. V. 4. 




1070 


40 






XIII. Jubilee. 


1051 




Solomon. 


Reign begins. 


2 Chr. ix. 30. 


1st y'. of Shemittah. 


1030 ^ 


g 




Temple founded. 


iKings. vi. 37. 




1027 S 




N. B. — This event was in 








612 




the 2d month of the 












613th year from the Ex- 












odus, or 612 years com- 












plete. This exactly a- 












grees with the testimony 












of Josephus, Antiq. B. 












XX. chap. X. 1. It is 












also the Chronology of 












this period by Theophi- 












lus. Bishop of Antioch. 











87 



II. TABLE. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE KINGDOMS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL, FROM THE 
FOUNDATION OF THE TEMPLE TO ITS DESTRUCTION BY NEBUCHADNEZ-i 
ZAR. 



Names. 


Events. 


Authorities. 


Jubilees and 
Sabbatic Years. 




Years 
Before 
Christ. 


Years of 
Reigns. 


Judah. 


Israel. 


C Remain- 
















Solomon, ^derofhis 


> Founds the Temple. 


1 Kings vi. 37. 




1027 


o / 




t reign. 


















Temple fi 


nished. 


38. 




1020 








Acme of hisi glory. 




XIV. Jubilee. 


1002 






Rehoboam. 


Reigns in 


Judah. 


xiv. 21. 




990 


"I 7 




Jeroboam. 




Israel. 


C xii. 20. ) 








22 






I xiv. 29. S 








Abijah. 




Judah. 


XV. 1, 2. 




973 


3 




Asa. 




Judah. 


XV. 9, 10. 




970 


41 




Nadah. 




Israel. 


XV. 25, 28. 




968 




1* 


Baasha. 




Israel. 


XV. 33. 




967 














XV. Jubilee. 


953 






Ela. 




Israel. 


xvi. 8, 10. 




944 




If 






Israel. 


5 xvi. 15. I 
I to V.29. 5 








lot 


Ahah. 




Israel. 


xvi. 20. 




933 




22 


Jehoshaphat. 




Judah. 


xxii.41,42. 




929 


25 




Ahaziah. 




Israel. 


xxii. 51. § 




911 




2 


Joram. 




Israel. 


2 Kings iii.l. sj 




909 




12 


Jehoram. 




Judah. 


viii. 16. 


YVT Tnhiloo 


904 


6 




Ahaziah. 




Judah. 


viii. 25,26. 




898 


1 




Queen Athaliah. 




Judah. 


xi. 3. 




897 


6 




Jehu. 




Israel. 


X. 36. 




897 




28 


Jehoash. 




Judah. 


xii. 1. 


Sabbatic year. 


891 


40 




Jehoahaz. 




Israel. 


xiii. 1. 


869 




17 










XVII. Jubilee. 


855 






Joash. 




Israel. 


xiii. 10. 




852 




16 


Amaziah. 




Judah. 


xiv. 1, 2. 




851 


29 




Jeroboam. 




Israel. 


xiv. 23. 




836 




41 


Interregnum. 


In 


Judah. 


(xiv. 17. I 
|xv. I. J 




822 


12 




Uzziah. 


Reigns in 


Judah. 


XV. 2. 




810 


52 












XVIILJubilee. 


806 






Interregnum. 


In 


Israel. 


5 xiv. 23. I 
Ixv. 8. 5 




795 




22 


Zechariah ^ Shallum. 


Reign in 


Israel. 


XV. 8, 13. 




773 




1 


Menahem. 


Israel. 


XV. 17, 23. 




772 




11 


Pekahiah. 




Israel. 


XV. 23. 




761 




2 


Pekah. 




Israel. 


XV. 27. 




759 




20 


Jotham. 




Judah, 


XV. 33. 




758 


16 


Total Years. —Judah 


from the 4 th of Solom 


3n ; Israel fron 


1 1st of Rehobc 


am, 


285 


251 



* See Table, p. 20. f Ibid. \ Ibid. § See Table, p. 21. f Ibid. 



88 



Names. 



Events. 



Authorities. 



Jubilees and 
Sabbatic Years. 



Years 
Before 
Christ. 



Years of 
Reigns. 



Ahaz. 

Tiglath- 
Pileser 



1- 5 King of ) 
. I Assyria. 3 



Interregnum. 



Hosheah. 
Shalma- 
nasar. 
Hezekiah. 



C King of 7 
( Assyria. 3 



Shalmanasar. 



Senna- ( King of 
cherib. \ Assyria. 



Manasseh. 



Esarhad- ( King of 
don. I Assyria, 



Amon. 
Josiah. 

Jehoahaz. 

.Tehoiakim. 

70 Years captivity 

begin. 
Jehoiachin. 



Zedekiah. 



Reigns in Judah. 
r Carries into Cap- 
< tivity the Tribes 
C beyond Jordan. 



In 



Israel. 



Reigns in Israel. 
{ Makes Hoshea his > 
i Tributary ) 

Reigns in Judah. 
f Takes Samaria. ~) 

< Kingdom of Is- > 
C rael ends. j 
C Invades Judah in ^ 

< the 14th year of > 
C Hezekiah. ) 
The army of Senna- ) 

cherib miraculous- > 
ly destroyed. ^ 

Reigns in Judah. 
f Sends Manassehl 
1 in chains to Ba- I 
bylon, and car- ) 
ries captive the 
last remnant of 
the 10 Tribes. 



XIX. Jubilee. 



2 Kings xvi. 1, 

XV. 29. 

2 Kings xvi. 
1. xvii. 1. ( 
See p. 33. of r 
this Work, j 
xvii. 1. 

xvii. 3. 

xviii. 1, 2. 

xvii. 6. 



xviii,13,14 



xix. 35. 



xxi. 1. 




Total Years : Judah 
Israel from the 



Reigns in Judah. 

Judah. 

Dies of his wounds. xxiii. 29. XXII. Jubilee 

Reigns in Judah 3 ? 

months. ) 
Reigns in Judah. 
Is made captive by ) 
Nebuchadnezzar. ) 
Reigns 3 months. 
Carried captive to 7 
Babylon. ^ 
Reigns in Judah. 
In his 9th year the 7 
City besieged. > 
In his 11th year the~| 
City and Temple | 
destroyed, and Ze- \- 7, 8, 9, 

dekiah carried to 
Babylon. 

from the 4th of Solomon to the destruction of the Temple ; 
1st of Jeroboam to the Captivity of Ten Tribes, 



XXI. 19. 

xxii. 1. 

xxiii. 29. 

xxiii. 31. 
xxiii.34,36. 

xxiv. 8. 
15 

xxiv. 17. 
XXV. 1. 



XX. Jubilee. 



XXI. Jubilee. 



Sabbatic year. 



757 
742 

740 

739 

729 
728 
726 

721 
713 

712 

70S 
697 

677 



285 
16 



251 



29 



659 
642 
640 
610 



610 
609 
606 
599 
598 
598 
590 

588 



55 



2 
31 



11 



10 



439 270 



89 



III. TABLE. 

THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE JEWS FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FIRST 
TEMPLE BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR TO THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SECOND 
TEMPLE BY THE ROMANS. 















Years of 


Names of Kings. 


Events. 


Scriptural 
Authority. 


High Priests 
of Judah. 


Jubilee and 
Sabbatic 
Years. 


Years 
before 
Christ. 


Reigns 
or Ad- 
minis- 
Tations. 


AT U V, ^ 


Dies 






XXTTl Tub 


561 




Evil-merodach. 


Reigns in Babylon. 


( 2 Kings I 
( XXV. 27. C 








2 




C "R pi pncprl ■Trrim ^ 












dah. S 


I prison. ^ 












Nsriglissar* 


Reigns in Babylon. 








559 


4 


Nabonadius or 1 


Reigns in Babylon. 








555 


17 


T^aritiQ flip ATprlp 


Takes Babylon. 


Dan. V. 31. 






538 


2 




r 

N 


Jeshua 63 ") 








Cyrus. 


Reigns in Persia. 


I 


years, to V 
B.C. 483. N 




536 


7 




rroclaniation to / 


Ezra i. 2. 












restore tbe Jews. \ 












Foundation of se- ) 
cond Temple. ) 


— iii. 10. 






535 




Cambyses. 


Reigns in Persia. 








329 


8 


Darius Hystaspes. 


Reigns 

His decree in fa-"^ 


Ezra vi. 1 — 






621 


36 




vourof the Jews, f 


12. Haggaif 




Sabbatic ) 


520 






and the building C 


i. 14, 15. (■ 


1 


year. ) 






of Temple. j 


— ii. 18. 3 












4th year of Dari- 














us, being 70 i 
years complete >• 














Zech. vii. 1, 5. 






518 






from destruction V 














of Temple. 














Temple finished. 


Ezra vi. 15. 






516 










XXIV. Jub 


512 





* I have carefully examined Dr Hales's reasons for here rejecting the general opinion of Chro- 
nologers, — that Belshazzar is the Nabonadius of Ptolemy, and for identifying him with Neriglissar. 
But it appears to me that this view is directly contrary to the testimony of Daniel, in his 5th chap- 
ter, of which the plain meaning is, that in the very night of the profane feast the Medes and Per- 
sians took the kingdom of Babylon. Dr Hales's gloss, "that soon after the Babylonians made 
Darius the Mede a voluntary tender of the sovereignty, and that Darius took or accepted the 
kingdom," seems a violent wresting of the words of the Scripture. The only authority he gives 
for it, is that of Berosus, as quoted by Josephus against Apion. But this cannot avail against the 
express testimony of the Word of God. The idea that Nabonadius was then appointed by Darius 
his viceroy, seems to be a fable without a shadow of evidence. I must, therefore, adhere to the 
Chronology of Prideaux in this place. Indeed, it appears to me that the language of Dan. vi. 1, 
2, which immediately follows the relation of the death of Belshazzar, and of Darius taking the 
kingdom, and the words of his decree, ver. 25, addressed unto all people, nations, and languages, 
that dwell in all the earth, do entirely negative and uproot the hypothesis of Dr Hales, that Darius 
was chosen king by the Babylonians, and appointed Nabonadius, a Babylonian nobleman, to be 
king or viceroy ; for had it been so, the narrative of the division of the kingdom among one hun- 
dred and twenty princes, and over these three presidents, of whom Daniel was the chief, is not 
true. It is impossible, if it were so, to account for the entire silence of Daniel upon this point. 
The reader will find the identity of Belshazzar with the Nabonadius of the Greeks ably vindicated 
in the Ancient Universal History, vol. iv., 8vo edit. 

M 



Names of Kings, 



Events. 



Scriptural 
Authority. 



High Priests 
of Judah. 



Jubilee and 
Sabbatic 
Years. 



Years 
before 
Christ. 



Xerxes. 



Xerxes. 

Artaxerxes Lon- 
gimanus. 



Darius Nothus. 



Artaxerxes Mne- 
mon. 



Ochus. 

Alexander the \ 
Great. S 



Arogus or Arses. 
Darius Codomanus. 
Alexander the \ 
Great. J 

Aridaeus. < 



Alexander .^gus 
Seleucus. 



Reigns in Persia. 

Invades Greece. 

Reigns in Persia. 

His decree for re- 
storing the Jew- 
ish State.* 



Nehemiah's com- 
mission. 

Nehemiah goes to 
the court of Arta- 
Xerxes in the 32d 
year of his reign, 
and again obtains 
his permission to re- 
turn to Jerusalem ; 
and here the Old 
Testament Chrono- 
logy ends. 

Reigns in Persia. 



Persia. 



Persit 



Born. 



Reigns in Persia. 

Persia. 

Overthrows Per- 
sian empire. 

Reigns over em- 
pire of Alexan- 
der. 



Reigns over empire 
Takes Babylon. This 
is the era of the Se- 
leucidae, caili'd by 
the Jews the era of 
contracts. 



■I 



Neh. xii. 10 
Dan. xi. 2 



Ezra vii. 12-26, 
Neh. xii. 10. | 
Neh. xi. 1 — 6, 



Neh. xiii. 6. 



JoakimSO 
years, to 
B. c. 454 



Joiadah 
40 yrs. to 
B. c. 374. 

Johanan 
32 yrs. to 
B. c. 342. 



Jaddua 
20 yrs. to 
c. 322. 



Onias 
21 yrs. to [ 
C. 301. ' 



XXV. Jub. 



XXVI. Jub 



XXVII. Jub, 



XXVIII. Jub, 



485 

483 

480 

464 

463 
458 

453 

446 



433 



423 
414 
413 

404 

373 
365 
358 

356 
341 

337 

335 

331 
323 

321 
316 
312 



* Sir Isaac Newton offers strong arguments to show that the Nisan of the 7th year of Arta- 
xerxes was in the year B. c. 457, and not 468. His reasoning is founded on the fact, that this 
prince ascended the throne after midsummer, in the year of Jul. Per. 4250. But then, accord- 
ing to the Canon of Ptolemy, in which he probably followed the Chaldean tables, the reign of 
each king was computed from the 1st of Thoth preceding his accession, and if so, the argument 
of Sir Isaac falls to the ground, and the arrival of Ezra at Jerusalem must have been in Elul, the 
6th month, B. c. 458, from which time, to the death of our Lord on the Cross, in A. c. 33, are 
489 years and 7 months. I am here aware of the difference between the Julian and Convmerary 
years of this period of the Chronology of Ptolemy, and that, properly speaking, the reign of Ar- 
taxerxes began on Dec. 17th, B. c. 465. (See Hales, vol. i. p. 159, 160, and 163, Notes.) But 
still, in reality, as the year B. c. 464 is, excepting 13 days, parallel with the Nabonassarian year 
263, which is his 1st year, we must, in computation, make B. c. 404 his 1st year,, and not 466. 



91 



Names. 



Ptolemy Lagus or Soter. 



Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
Antiochus Soter. 



Antiochus Theus. 



Ptolemy Euergetes. 
Seleucus Callinicus. 
Seleucus Ceraunus. 
Antiochus Magnus. 
Ptolemy Philopator. 



Ptolemy Epiplianes. Reigns in Egypt, 



Events. 



Reigns in Egypt. 



Reigns in Egypt. 
Syria. 



Reigns in Syria. 



Reigns in Egypt. 

Syria. 

Syria. 

Syria. 

Egypt. 



Seleucus Philopator. 
Ptolemy Philometor. 

Antiochus Epiphanes. 



Judas Maccabeeus. 

Antiochus Eupator. 
Demetrius Soter. 



Alexander Balas. 

Demetrius Nicator. 

Ptolemy Physcon, or 
Euergetes II. 

Antiochus VI. Epiph- 
anes. 

Tryphon. 

Antiochus Sidetes. 



Demetrius Nicator. 
Alexander Zebina. 
Antiochus Grypus. 

Ptolemy Soter, or 
Lathyrus. 



Reigns in Syria. 
Egypt. 



Reigns in Syria. 



Takes Jerusa- ' 
lem, profanes I 
the Holy of| 
Holies & altar. _ 

Pux-ifiestheTem- ' 
pie, & restores ' 
the worship. 

Reigns in Syria. 

Syria. 



Reigns in Syria. 
Syria. 

Egypt. 

Syria. 



Restored in Syria. 
Reigns in Syria. 
Svria. 



High Priests 
and Princes of Judah. 



Simon the Just, 
9 years to B. C. 292 

Eleazar, 

15 years to B.C. 277 



Manasseh, 

26 years to B. c. 25 1 

Onias XL 

33 years to B.C. 218 



Simon II. 

22 years to B. c. 196 

Onias III. 

20 years to B. c. 1 76 

Jason, 
3 years. 
Menelaus, 
6 years. 



Judas Maccabaeus, 
6 years Prince. 



Jonathan Prince, 
17 years to B. c. 1 44 



Simon Prince, 
8 years to B.C. 136 



John Hyrcanus, 
Prince, 29 years to 
B. c. 107. 



Jubilee and Sab- 
batic Years. 



XXIX. Jubilee. 



XXX. Jubilee. 



XXXI. Jubilee. 



} j Egypt. 



Sabbatic year. 



XXXII. Jubilee. 



Years 
Befort 
Christ 


C v 
£^ 
^2 


300 




304 


20 


291 




284 


38 


279 


19 


276 




267 




260 


15 


250 




246 


25 


245 


21 




i) 


222 


36 


221 


17 


218 




217 




204 


24 


195 




186 


12 


180 


35 


175 


11 


172 




170 








166 




166 




164 


2 


162 


11 


160 




150 


5 


145 


2 


145 


29 


143 


1 


142 


4 


138 


8 


135 




130 


5 


125 


3 


122 


25 


120 




116 


36 



92 



Names. 



Seleucus Nicator. 
Philip. 

Tigranes, king of 

Armenia. 
Alexander. 



Antiochus Asiaticus. 



The Romans under ) 
Pompey. ) 

Ptolemy Auletes, or } 
Dionysius. ^ 
Pompey. 
Cleopatra. 



Augustus Caesar. 



Christ. 



Events. 



Judea. 

Coponius. 
Marcus Ambivius. 

Tiberius. 



Reigns in Syria. 
Syria. 

Syria. 

Egypt. 



Kings of Judea. 



Aristobulus. 
Alexander Jannseus. 



Queen Alexandra. 
Aristobulus. 



Jubilee and Sab- 
batic Years. 



XXXIII. Jubilee. 



Years 
B"fore 
Christ. 



Reigns 4 years 
in a part of 
Syria. 

Conquer Sy-" 
ria, and re- 
duce it into 
a Roman pro- 
vince. J 

Reigns in Egypt. 

Takes Jerusalem. 
Reigns in Egypt. 

Emperor of Rome 
Egypt formed ^ 
into a Roman > 
province. 3 

Born at Beth- 
lehem. 



Made Ro- 
man Pro- 
vince. 



Hyrcanus. 

Antigonus. 
Herod. 



Procurator 
Judea. 



Procurator of , 
Judea. ^ 

C Reigns con- ^ 
-< junctly with > 
Augustus. } 



Archelaus. 



XXXIV. Jubilee. 



106 
105 

96 
92 

83 

80 
78 
71 

69 

69 



65 



65 

63 
52 
40 
37 
30 

30 

22 

4 



8 
10 

12 



14 

23 
22 
3 
34 
43 



93 













< Z 






High Priest of 




A.D. 




Names. 


Events. 


the Jews. 


Jubilee Years. 


Years 
miiiisti 


Annius Rufus. 


Procurator of Judea. 






13 




Tiberius. 


Reigns alone. 






15 




Valerius Gratus. 


Procurator of Judea. 


TcvYi a aI 
JLdlllcLt^I* 

Simon. 

jostjpii, our— j 




15 
23 
24 

25 




Pontius Pilate. 


Procurator of Judea. ■< 


named Caia- >- 




26 






L 


phus. J 




26 




John the Baptist. 


Begins his ministry. 




XXXV.Jubilee. 




Christ. 


Baptized in Jordan. 




28 




Christ. 


Begins his ministry. 
Dies on the Cross, is ^ 






29 




Christ. -s 

c 


buried, rises and as- > 
cends to Heaven. ) 






33 




p. Marcellus.* 


Procurator of Judea. 






35 




C Caligula. 


Emperor of Rome. 






36 


4 


P. Marullus. 


Procurator of Judea. 






36 


5 


Claudius. 


Emperor of Rome. 






40 


14 


Herod Agrippa. 


King of Judea. 






41 


3 


James the Apostle. 


Slain by Herod. 






44 




P. Cuspius Fadus. 


Procurator of Judea. 






44 


2 


P. Tiberius Alexander. 








46 


1 


P. Ventidius Cumanus. 


1 Council at Jerusalem. 






47 

49 


3 


P. Felix. 








52 


10 


Nero. 


Emperor of Rome. 






54 


14 


Paul. 


Imprisoned at Jerusalem 






59 




P. Porcius Festus. 


Procurator of Judea. 






61 


1 


P. Albinus. 








63 




Gessius Florus. 


Thirty thousand Jews'] 
massacred at Csesa- 1 
rea, 20,000 at Ptole- \ 
mais, 50,000 at Al- 1 
exandria. J 

Besieges Jerusalem, ^ 






64 
67 




Cestius G alius. < 


but suddenly raises V 
the siege. 3 






67 






Enters Galilee with 
60,000 men, takes 










Vespasian. 


Jotapa, which is de- \ 
fended by Josephus, 
40;000 Jews slain. 






67 






Takes and destroys' 
Jerusalem, and or- 










Titus. 


ders the plough to 
pass over it. — INIore 
than 1,350,000 Jews 
perish in the war. 






70 





* For the dates of the administrations of the Procurators which follow, I am indebted to 
Dr Hales. 



APPENDIX I. 



REMARKS ON THE JUBILEAN PERIOD, IN A LETTER 
TO A FRIEND.* 



It has lately struck me, that if we could ascertain exactly when 
the next year of Jubilee is, it would throw much light upon the 
probable course of events. I shall now tell you the result of my 
inquiries : — Before consulting any writer on the subject, I arrived 
at the conclusion in my own mind, that our Lord's personal min- 
istry must have begun in a year of Jubilee. Mark i. 15, helped 
me to this conclusion. I then consulted Hales. I found he had 
arrived at the very same conclusion, from another text, namely, 
the words in Luke iv. 19, which, he thinks, our Lord chose, from 
its being the very year of the Jubilee. Now, Hales places the 
first year of our Lord's ministry, not in the year 30, as in the 
marginal Chronology of our authorized Bibles, but two years 
sooner, in a. d. 28, from which year, computing dov/nwards, I 
found, to my great surprise and delight, that the year 1792 is a 
Jubilee year, in which, you know, I place the sounding of the 
seventh trumpet, and the expiration of the 1260 years. The 
next year of Jubilee will be 1841 ; and, if I am right in these 
calculations, I conjecture that, before that year, Israel will be 
in possession of their own land, and the advent will have taken 
place. In the next place, I find that Hales places the first Sab- 
batical year, after the entrance of Joshua into the promised land, 
in the year b. c. 1389. I ought to add, that he adopts the Chro- 
nology of the Seventy, and Josephus, rejecting that of our He- 

* Inserted in the Morning "Watch, vol. iii p. 874, December, 1 830. The date 
of the letter was October 8th, 1830. 



96 



APPENDIX I. 



brew Bibles, which, there is reason to believe, was falsified by the 
Jews after our Lord's appearance, for the purpose of throwing 
back the whole Chronology of the world, and this in order to 
prove that the Messiah was not come. I next found, that from 
B. c. 1589, to B. c. 1841, are exactly 70 Jubilees, or 3430 years. 
Now, if you refer to my Jewish Essays, p. 180, printed in 1822, 
you will find a conjecture, that the seventy years, mentioned in 
Zech. i. 12, is a mystical number representing the whole period 
of the captivities and dispersions of Judah, till the final redemp- 
tion of the nation. I am inclined to believe, that I have now 
found this mystical number in the Seventy Jubilees above men- 
tioned. In arriving at this conclusion, we must derive assistance 
from the manner in which the period of 400 years, mentioned 
in Gen. xv. 13, is calculated, which comprehends much more 
than the time of the actual captivity in Egypt, and begins, as is 
generally admitted, from the birth of Isaac. So, in calculating 
the Seventy Jubilees, we must advert to the principle laid down 
in Lev. xxv. 23, that the children of Israel, in their former pos- 
session of the land, had it only as pilgrims and strangers. It is 
only when they receive it after their final return, that it shall be 
theirs, "ybr an everlasting possession,^ 

I shall now inform the reader, that my reason for inserting the 
foregoing short Paper in this Appendix, is, that it seems neces- 
sary for the elucidation of that part of the Paper that follows, 
which relates to the Jubilean Chronology. It contains also the 
first clear ideas which were ofiered to my mind, in reference to 
the mystical signification of the number in Zech. i. 12, to which 
the concluding observations have reference. These ideas after- 
wards led to the more matured view imbodied in my Jubilean 
Chronology, to which I still adhere. The Paper on the Vision 
in Zech. i. and ii. appeared originally in the Jewish Expositor, 
in the year 1817 ; and as it contains the thoughts which may be 
considered as the source of the whole of these Chronological in- 
quiries, I shall insert it as the 3d Number of this Appendix. 



APPENDIX II. 



ON THE HEBREW AND SEPTUAGINT CHRONOLOGY OF 
THE POSTDILUVIAN PERIODS.* 



1. — 1. It may seem an adventurous task, for one who confesses 
himself to he ignorant of astronomical calculations, to advance 
to the assault of a person so covered with the seven-fold panoply 
of science, as the author of the learned paper on the Scriptural 
Chronology contained in your last two numbers. But as I 
believe my own weapons to be of a higher and more celestialf 
temper than any which can be derived from the armoury of hu- 
man science, I shall fearlessly proceed to oifer to you my reasons 
for rejecting the whole reasoning of Mr Cullimore, and for adher- 
ing to the opinion of nearly all later writers on the subject, that 
the Chronology of the Hebrew text is spurious, and has been 
altered by the Jews since our Lord's first appearance. 

2. As, however, the antediluvian Chronology is less important 
in a practical point of view than the postdiluvian, I shall content 
myself with simply stating the diiFerences between the Hebrew 
and Greek, and Samaritan Chronologies of the antediluvian pe- 
riod, and shall confine myself in this paper to the subject of 
postdiluvian times, the rectification of wdiich is important both 
for the elucidation of the historical and prophetic Scriptures : — 

* First published in The Morning Watch, vol. iii. p. 416. June, 1831. 

t Mr Cullimore, in his reply to a part, and only a part, of the reasoning of 
this Paper, showed a disposition to he someichat facetious on the icord CELESTIAL. 
Let me then explain that I mean hy it Scriptural ; hut as the Scriptural tem- 
per or A WEAPON would not he a correct figure, I have used the ahove word. I 
shall here mention, that the Notes in this Paper, which are in Italic, belong to 
this Edition, 

N 



98 



APPENDIX II. 



According to the Hebrew text, the period which elapsed from 

the Creation to the Deluge, was 1656 years. 

According to the Samaritan text it was .... 1307 — 

According to the Greek text of the Seventy, it was . . 2262 — 

3. The differences between the three Chronologies, in the pe- 
riod between the flood and the birth of Abraham, are exhibited 
in the three Tables which follow, wherein the letters Y. a. d. are 
used to express Years after the Deluge, I shall, however, limit 
myself in this paper to the discussion of the comparative merits 
of the Hebrew and Greek Chronologies, having no intention of 
entering into the question, as to the degree of authority to be 
attributed to the Samaritan Pentateuch. 



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100 



APPENDIX II. 



II — 1. The first conclusion which forces itself on the mind, 
upon a careful examination of the foregoing Tahles, is, that the 
difference between the Hebrew and Greek Chronologies cannot 
have originated in any other way than that of a systematic cor- 
ruption and wilful alteration of the original numbers containing 
the ages of the patriarchs. Either the Hebrew text, as it now 
stands, has wilfully subtracted a century from the ages of six of 
the patriarchs, and fifty years from that of Nahor, when they 
had their first-born sons — adding the periods thus subtracted to 
the residue of their lives — or, on the other hand, the Greek text 
has designedly made an addition of a century to their ages when 
they had sons, subtracting it from the residue. Moreover, the 
Seventy have, in the person of Cainan the son of Arphaxad, one 
generation more than the Hebrew text. 

2. When a deed existing in duplicate is proved to have been 
altered, the very next inquiry which presents itself to the mind 
naturally is, " In whose custody have the copies been lodged, and 
what is the character of the parties?''' Now, when we ask this 
question with a reference to the Hebrew and Greek copies of the 
Old Testament, we are told by the voice of history, that the 
version of the Seventy has always been in the custody of the 
church of God. Before our Lord came, it was, in common with 
the Hebrew Scriptures, in the hands of the Jews, who were then 
the church of God : and since his advent and ascension this ver- 
sion has been in the keeping of the Gentile church, which, in 
this dispensation, occupies the place of the Jews as the church 
of God. The Hebrew version was, in like manner, till our Lord's 
advent, in the hands of the Jews, the church of God ; but from 
the age of the Apostles to that of Origen, it was in the sole and 
exclusive custody of the unbelieving Jews, who were the bitterest 
enemies of the church of God. The only version, then, used in 
the Greek churches, was that of the Seventy ; and till the time 
of Jerome, the Latins had no other copy than what was trans- 
lated from it. There was, it is true, an ancient Syriac version, 
made from the Hebrew, used in the East ; but the Hebrew itself 
was almost unknown, even to the learned, in the Christian church. 

The fathers, with the exception of Origen and Jerome, were 
unacquainted with Hebrew."* Indeed, the Jews were so jealous 

* Home's Introd. Part. I. chap. v. sect. I. 



APPENDIX II. 



101 



of communicating the knowledge of it to the Christians, that 
when Jerome got some of the Rabbis to help him in his Hebrew 
studies, it was only by bribing them with large sums ; and even 
then, they would only come to him by night, for fear of their 
brethren.* 

3. It is thus manifest, that the unbelieving Jews had the sole 
keeping of the Hebrew Scriptures for a period of at least ]a cen- 
tury and a half, which must have rendered it an easy matter for 
their leading Rabbis to falsify the Chronology of these Scrip- 
tures, if they were so inclined. 

4. Now, since we have already seen that the difference between 
the Hebrew and Greek Chronologies must have originated in de- 
sign, it is quite manifest, from what is said above, that the very 
fact of the reception of the Hebrew and rejection of the Greek 
Chronology, involves in it a direct charge against the church of 
God, of having wilfully corrupted the Scriptures ; and if the 
church have done so in one instance, it may, for aught that we 
know, have done it in many ; so that it is easy to see that this 
hypothesis impugns the testimony of the church with regard to 
the whole Scriptures. 

5. On the other hand, the reception of the Chronology of the 
version of the Seventy, which has always been in the custody of 
the church of God, involves the charge of wilful corruption, not 
against that church, but against the Jews, after they had cruci- 
fied the Lord of glory, and had filled up the measure of their 
sins, and wrath was come upon them to the uttermost. f 

6. Now, Sir, Mr Cullimore's paper affirms the former of these 
alternatives. The Seventy interpreters, who, from the very na- 
ture of the duty committed to them of rendering the Hebrew 
Scriptures into Greek, must have been men of high repute in 
the church of God, and must have been intimately connected 
with the Sanhedrim, are charged by Mr Cullimore with having 
wilfully and systematically altered and corrupted the Chronology 
of their own Scriptures, from a motive of national vanity, and in 
order to raise the antiquity of their sacred records and their 
nation." J And the manner in which they are said by him to 

* Prideaux's Connections, Part 11. book viii. Father Simon, in his Histoire 
Critique du Vieux Testament, says, that the Jews positively forbade teaching 
Christians the Hebrew language. (Quoted by Dr Russell, vol. i. p. 86.) 
t 1 Thess. ii. 16. j: Morning Watch, No. viii. p. 901. 



102 



APPENDIX II. 



have effected this, is, by the aid of certain astronomical Tables, 
(the existence of which is assumed without a shadow of evidence,) 
wherein the places of the equinoxes and solstices w^ere ascertained 
very soon after the deluge. Assuming the rate of the precession 
of the equinoxes at one degree in a century, according to the 
estimate of the Egyptian, Greek, and Chaldean astronomers of 
that age ; and calculating the period which must have elapsed 
from the deluge, according to the difference between the observed 
places of the equinoxes in their own times, and their recorded 
places at the deluge, at the rate of 101 § years for one degree of 
longitude of the fixed stars ; they brought out, says I\lr C, the 
sum of 2938 years from the deluge to the eighth year of Ptolemy 
Philadelphus, which is only twenty-four years short of the period 
of 2962 in the Greek version ;* the true length of the same pe- 
riod, according to the Hebrew, being 2070 years. The above 
discrepancy of twenty-four years, Mr CuUimore accounts for by 
another conjecture, — (and by thus substituting conjecture for evi- 
dence we may prove any tiling.) He supposes the Seventy may 
have inserted 130 years as the generation of Cainan, instead 
of 108, (106 I presume,) to make it equal to that of the other 
patriarchs from the deluge to Abraham; or, adds he, "the differ- 
ence may have arisen from a trifling error in our estimate of the 
equinoctial precession." 

7. The learned writer, with the aid of similar calculations, 
pretends to ascertain the eras of no less than eight other corrup- 
tions of the original Hebrew Chronology ; the earliest being the 
Hermaic corruption, which he pins down to the year a. c. 1509 ; 
and the latest, the modern Jewish corruption, in a. d. 813. That 
is, he supposes that, at the period of each of these corruptions, 
the place of the equinoxes at the deluge was before the eyes of 
the corrupters ; and also, that their place at the time of each 
corruption was correctly ascertained ; and the difference having 
been calculated, in the first eight corruptions, at the rate of a 
hundred years to one degree of precession, and in the ninth and 
last, namely, the modern Hebrew, at the rate of sixty-six years 
to a degree, being the rate computed in the Arabian schools of 
science about the ninth century, the result in each case was a 
variation from the original and authentic Chronology of the He- 



* Morning Watch, No. viii. p. 904. 



APPENDIX II. 



103 



brew text, correspoiKling witli the numbers now found in tlie 
various copies of the Old Testament, and in the works of the 
other writers, upon whom Mr Cullimore hiys the onus of the 
different corruptions. 

8. Now it seems to me passing strange, that Mr Cullimore 
should have failed to see that his different data are not only as- 
sumed without evidence, but are wholly inconsistent with each 
other. He supposes, first, that there were correct astronomical 
Tables up to the period of the deluge, recording the places of 
the equinoxes at that time. But where is the evidence of this ? 
Surely the story of the pillars of Seth — mentioned by Josephus, 
but repudiated now, by the writers of the greatest authority, as 
unworthy of credit — cannot be received as deserving the name 
of evidence. But, at any rate, these pillars, supposing them to 
have had a real existence, cannot serve this hypothesis, since 
they are supposed to refer to the antediluvian ages, and are, 
therefore, no evidence of the existence of Tables coeval with the 
deluge. In the second place, Mr Cullimore supposes that there 
were correct observations of the actual position of the equinoxes 
at the eras of the various supposed corruptions, namely, in the 
years e.g. 1509, 465, 345, 296, 141, and 109, and in a.d. 114 
and 813. But nearly the whole of this also is without evidence ; 
at least none is produced for it by Mr Cullimore. I, moreover, 
learn, on the authority of Dr Hales, that Hipparchus was the 
first of the Grecian astronomers who discovered the precession of 
the equinoxes. On comparing his own observations, b. c. 128, 
with those of Timochares, b. c. 280, he found a sensible increase 
in the longitude of the bright star Spica Virginis, which he rated 
at one degTee in a century ; hut^ according to Ptolemy, he hesi- 
tated, because the 'preceding observations of Timochares were but 
COARSELY MADE ; and also the interval of one hundred and fifty 
years, elapsed between their observations, ivas not yet become suffi- 
cient to induce firm conviction, 

9. But, in the next place, if for argument's sake it were granted 
to Mr Cullimore, that his supposed Tables up to the deluge, and 
at the periods fixed by him for the different alleged corruptions, 
had a real existence, and that the places of the equinoxes had, at 
all these different periods, been accurately ascertained, then it 
must have led to a mucli nearer approximation to the true rate of 
equinoctial precession, than the one which forms the basis of all 



104 



APPENDIX II. 



his calculations, namely, one degree in 100 or lOlh years. The 
very fact of the existence of so great an error, even as late as 
the age of Hipparchus, b. c. 128, demolishes his theory ; either 
negativing entirely the existence of his imaginary Tables and 
series of astronomical observations, or impugning their accuracy 
and authority, and confirming the testimony of Ptolemy, that 
they were coarsely made. To render this plain, even to the reader 
who is not conversant with astronomical terms and calculations, 
I shall observe, that if the place of the equinoxes was fixed by 
one observation made in the year b. c. 465, and again ascertained 
in 345, and once more in the year 296,* they must have been 
found in this term of one hundred and sixty-nine years, being the 
difference between the first and last of these years, to have 
moved forward about 2 deg. 20 min. 10 sec; whereas, Mr 
Cullimore supposes the result of all the ancient observations, on 
which he founds his theory, to have been, that the rate of equi- 
noctial precession was only one degree in a century ; or, in other 
words, that in the above term of one hundred and sixty-nine 
years the equinoxes had moved forward only 1 deg. 41 min. 24 
sec, which, at the true rate of precession, makes a difference in 
time of not less than forty-six years, in the short period of one 
hundred and sixty-nine years. Now, since, according to the 
scheme of Mr Cullimore himself, the ancient observations were 
thus coarse and inaccurate, this very circumstance demolishes the 
fundamental principles of his whole system, and levels it with 
the ground; for it is impossible that the supposed existence of 
astronomical observations thus grossly inaccurate, can lead to the 
results which he imagines, of fixing on accurate principles the 
dates of the various alterations and discrepancies in Scriptural 
Chronology, as exhibited in our present copies. 

10. To his argument, from the unanimous opinion of the an- 
cients, that time began when the vernal equinox was in Taurus, 
and the summer solstice in Leo, (that is, between the years b. c. 
4665 and 2520,) I answer, that the beginning of time, here re- 
ferred to, may be the time of the heavens and the earth that are 
now ; f i. e. the postdiluvian time ; and in confirmation of this, 

* It will be seen, by a reference to his Papei', that these are three of Mr Cul- 
limore's imaginary eras of the corruptions. 

f 2 Pet. iii. 7. 



APPENDIX II. 



105 



let it be observed, that from Job xxxviii. 31, an argument has 
been deduced by Dr Hales, that Chiniah and Chesil, or Taurus 
and Scorpio, (the last rendered Orion in our version,) were the 
constellations of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes in the age of 
Job; and Dr Brinkley, professor of astronomy in the university 
of Dublin, hence calculates the age of Job as coinciding with the 
year b. c. 2338. A French writer, who published a thesis at Pa- 
ris in 1765, in the Sorbonne, had, unknown to Dr Hales, anti- 
cipated his argument, and pinned down the age of Job to the 
year B.C. 2136.* And it is scarcely necessary to add, that even 
the last of these dates carries .back the age of Job to a period 
which, though quite in harmony with the Chronology of the 
Seventy, is not at all consistent with the Hebrew Chronology, 
according to which the above year was just two hundred and 
three years after the flood ; and thus Job must have been the 
contemporary of all the patriarchs from Noah to Serug, which is 
utterly at variance with the internal evidence of the book itself. 

III. — 1. I now proceed, however, to argue the question upon 
other and more directly scriptural grounds. We have already 
seen that Mr Cullimore's theory charges the Seventy elders with 
the enormous w^ickedness of having wilfully corrupted the word of 
God, with which they were intrusted for rendering into Greek. 
But it is not they only who are included in this charge. The 
whole Jewish church, before our Lord's appearance, must parti- 
cipate in the guilt of this corruption. For we are informed by 
history, that " the version of the Seventy gradually acquired the 
highest authority among the Jews of Palestine, who were ac- 
quainted with the Greek language."! It was used not only by 
the Hellenistic Jews of Palestine, but throughout all the syna- 
gogues of the Roman empire. Thus, then, if Mr Cullimore's 
theory be true, the whole Jewish church must share in the guilt 
of allowing a wilful and daring corruption of their own Scriptures. 
Moreover, the alleged corruption was not confined to the Greek 
copies ; for Eusebius " found in the Hebrew copies which he con- 
sulted different accounts of the times, some following the longer, 
others the shorter computations.":!: 

* Hales's Chronology, vol. ii. p. 66, second edition. 
+ Home's Introduction, vol. ii. p. 179, second edition. 
\ Quoted by Dr Hales, vol. i. p. 278. 
O 



106 



APPENDIX II. 



2. But tlie learned author of this paper, whether designedly or 
not I know not, involves the whole primitive Christian church in 
the like guilt, or in a charge of gross and most criminal igno- 
rance ; for it is a fact altogether indisputahle, that the version of 
the Seventy was universally adopted hy the churches of Christ in 
the first ages. " As Christianity grew, so also did the credit and 
use of the Greek version of the Old Testament Scriptures."* 
And, what is more remarkable still, this version is, in the great 
majority of instances, adopted by the inspired waiters of the New 
Testament in their quotations from the Old. According to Mr 
Home, these quotations may be arranged as follows : — 

Quotations agreeing verbatim with the Septuagint, or only changing the 

person, number, &c. are in number ...... 75 

Quotations taken from the Septuagint, but with some variation, are . 47 

Quotations agreeing with the Septuagint in sense, but not in words 32 
Quotations differing from the Septuagint, but agreeing exactly or nearly 

with the Hebrew . . . . . . . . . 11 

' Quotations which differ both from the Septuagint and the Hebrew . 19 

3. It thus appears that the inspired penmen of the New Testa- 
ment have given their solemn and deliberate sanction to a version 
which Mr Cullimore pronounces to have been corrupted at its 
very source ; and it merits especial consideration, that not a few 
of these quotations are put into the mouth of our Lord himself, 
in his various recorded discourses and apophthegms. 

4. Does, then, Mr Cullimore mean to implicate the Apostles of 
the Lord in the charge of having connived at a wilful corruption 
of the Word of God, by using and quoting a version which they 
knew to be thus wilfully corrupted ? Or does he charge them 
with ignorance of the fact of its corruption, and thus deny their 
inspiration ? I see not how he can escape from the dilemma of 
choosing one or the other of these alternatives ; and his language 
in the Morning Watch (March, 1831, p. 174) looks very like the 
choice of the first. He affirms, that the sum of 5500 years, ex- 
pected by tradition to elapse from the creation to the Messiah, 

although founded on a corrupted Chronology, might neverthe- 
less have been suffered, by Divine Providence, to come out with 
some degree of accuracy , because adapted to prevailing notions ; 

* Prideaux's Connection?, Part ii., book i., sect. 10. 



APPENDIX II. 



107 



just as the received Greek version of Scripture was afterwards used 
and quoted by Christ and his Apostles, as the best adapted to 
forward the interests of Christianity." Certainly the above sen- 
timents appear to me the most extraordinary that I remember to 
have met with in any professed friend of Revelation. I forbear 
saying more, leaving it to Mr CuUimore himself to explain how 
they differ from the language of some who charged the Apostle 
with choosing evil that good might come. 

5. Once more : if the facts be, as Mr Cullimore asserts, that 
not only the Seventy interpreters, but also Josephus and others, 
were all guilty of corrupting the Scriptures at different and dis- 
tant periods, upon one and the same astronomical principle, how 
can we account for the entire silence of all antiquity upon this 
point ? Had it occurred at the times Mr Cullimore pretends, the 
Chronological difference between the Greek and Hebrew Scrip- 
tures must have been known to multitudes ; and yet no one writer 
of antiquity was honest enough to bear witness to the fact ! An 
entire silence was observed about it till the fourth century, when 
the Jews were charged, by Ephrem Syrus and others, with hav- 
ing corrupted their Chronology ; * and hence the natural conclu- 
sion is, that, in the Apostolic age, the difference had no exist- 
ence. Mr Cullimore, indeed, attempts to prove that Josephus 
had the present Hebrew numbers before him : but his arguments 
have no weight, being founded partly on numbers manifestly in- 
terpolated into the text of Josephus, and partly on conjectural 
numbers of Mr Cullimore himself; as, for example, in p. 163 of 
Morning Watch, 1656 for 2656, a conjectural emendation ; and 
the number 292, evidently interpolated into Josephus. 

6. It thus appears, that the truth of Mr Cullimore's scheme 
would include in it a complicated series of frauds and collusions, 
and either of guilty connivances or most inexplicable ignorance ; 
and all this among a variety of parties, including persons vener- 
able for character, in veracity unimpeached, and some of them 
the highly lionoured servants and Apostles of God ; and yet of 
this strange combination of moral phenomena not one whisper is 
to be found in history ! It was only discovered when Mr Culli- 
more retired into his closet to unravel these mysterious transac- 
tions. Now, I must confess, Sir, that all this appears to my mind 



* Hales, vol. i, p. 278. 



108 



APPENDIX II. 



utterly incredible, and I must oppose a pertinacious resistance to 
the whole process by which the learned wTiter purposes thus to 
overthrow moral evidence, historical probability, and testimony. 
All these I shall cleave to, although I should be compelled to 
reject the embolismal periods and numbers of this learned writer. 

IV. — 1. I shall now enter upon another branch of my argu- 
ment, by examining the Hebrew Postdiluvian Chronology on its 
own merits, and comparing it with the Scriptural history, and 
trying how far it is consistent therewith, and with probability and 
analogy. 

2. We are informed in the Book of Genesis, (x. 25,) that the 
earth was divided in the days of Peleg. But, according to the 
Hebrew Chronology, the five former patriarchs, from Noah to 
Eber, outlived Peleg, seeing that he died in the year a. f. 340 ; 
whereas his father, Eber, lived till the year 331, nearly two cen- 
turies later. This Chronology is, therefore, quite inconsistent with 
the narrative of Genesis ; since, if the Chronology were true, it 
would be more proper to say that the earth was divided in the 
days of Noah than in the days of Peleg, who died ten years be- 
fore his great ancestor. 

3. On the other hand, it will be found that the Chronology of 
the Seventy entirely harmonizes with this part of the narrative 
of Moses ; for, according to the Greek text, all the former pa- 
triarchs, from Noah to Eber, died in natural succession ; Eber, 
the father of Peleg, in the year a. f. 801, while Peleg outlived 
his father sixty-nine years, and died in the year a. f. 870. 

4. Again : according to the Chronology of our Hebrew Bibles, 
the tower of Babel was built, and the confusion of tongues hap- 
pened, little more than one century after the deluge, and in the 
life-time of all the patriarchs from Noah to Peleg. To say no- 
thing of the utter impossibility of accounting for such an increase 
of the human race, from only three pairs within one century, as 
is supposed by this Chronology, we are at once struck with other 
moral difficulties and paradoxes. If the confusion of tongues 
happened so early, then must Noah himself, and his immediate 
descendants, have become mutually unintelligible to each other; 
a supposition which violates all probability as well as scriptural 
analogy. Moreover, Noah is made, by this Chronology, to out- 
live the confusion of tongues and dispersion of his descendants, 
by more than two centuries ; and having, in his earlier days, seen, 



APPENDIX II. 



109 



with agony of soul, the destruction of one world, he is made, in 
his old age, the sorrowful and impotent spectator of the almost 
universal apostasy of a second world, composed entirely of his 
own children. 

5. Again : this Chronology wholly violates the established eco- 
nomy of the universe, not only as exhibited to our view in the 
uniform experience of mankind, but also declared in the Scrip- 
tures themselves. It is a part of this economy, as described in 
the Book of Ecclesiastes (i. 4), that one generation passeth away, 
and another cometh. Indeed, the deep cup of bitterness which 
parents drink when called upon to accompany the remains of their 
own children to the grave, sends a pang into the inmost recesses 
of the heart, causing them to feel, that in such dispensations of 
Providence there is not only an execution of the universal sen- 
tence,~Z)w5^ thou art, and unto dust thou shall return ; but there 
is, as it were, a penal prematurity in the fulfilment of the sen- 
tence, which at once violates the usual order of Providence, and 
aggravates the bitterness of the sentence of universal death, — 
"O Absalom, my son, my son /" Now, according to the Hebrew 
Chronology, no less than eleven generations of men, from Noah 
to Abraham, were alive upon the earth at one and the same time ; 
and of these, Shem was called upon to bury eight generations of 
his own children ; Eber buried six generations, and Serug one. 

6. In the next place : according to this Chronology, Noah, who 
lived nine centuries ; Shem, who lived six centuries ; three other 
generations of men, whose lives were four centuries ; and four 
other generations, who lived more than two centuries ; were all 
the contemporaries of Abraham ; and thus different and discord- 
ant principles, respecting the economy of the universe, were co- 
existent, and in operation at one and the same moment of time. 
Now, the earlier of these postdiluvian generations must have 
continued to beget children at the age of three centuries, and the 
later at more than a century and a half : but if so, how is it that 
the Scriptures celebrate the great faith of Abraham, in believing 
that he was to have a son at the age of one century, when he saw 
before his eyes his own forefathers begetting children at the age 
of three centuries ? 

7. In all these particulars, the Hebrew Chronology so utterly 
violates all consistency, and probability, and analogy, and truth, 
that had not the providence of God preserved to us the genealo- 



110 



APPENDIX II. 



gies and ages of the patriarchs, as contamed in tlie Septuagint 
and Samaritan Pentateuchs and the works of Josephus, we should 
have been altogether at a loss how to reconcile the history of the 
Book of Genesis with its account of the postdiluvian Chrono- 
logy ; and objections, in themselves utterly unanswerable, might 
have been thence deduced, by infidels desiring to impugn the 
authority and veracity of the sacred historian. 

8. In the Chronology of the Seventy, the above difficulties and 
inconsistencies have no existence. A careful examination of the 
foregoing table. No. II. will convince us that all is natural, and 
in due proportion, and in harmony with the established laws of 
the universe, making only allowance for the gradual diminution 
of the life of man in the generations from Noah to Abraham. In 
this Chronology, one generation passes away, and another comes, 
and though the life of man is gradually narrowed, yet we do not 
meet with the strange anomaly exhibited in the Hebrew Chrono- 
logy, of men whose lives extended to four, five, and six centuries, 
and one whose life was nine centuries, co-existing with those who 
lived less than two. 

9. According to the Seventy, Peleg, in whose days tlie earth 
was divided, was born in the year a. f. 531, subsequently to the 
death of Noah and Shem, and only a few years before that of 
Arphaxad ; and he lived till the year 870, having survived his 
father, Eber, sixty-nine years. If we suppose the above division 
to have taken place in the last years of his life, then, according 
to the Chronology of the Seventy, it happened about twenty- 
three centuries before Christ, about half a century earlier than it 
is placed by Usher's Chronology, following the Hebrew text. 

10. The next reason for rejecting the Hebrew postdiluvian 
Chronology, and receiving the Greek, is the entire inconsistency 
of the former with the Gospel of St Luke, every copy of which, 
now in existence, except the Cambridge MS. (which, though very 
ancient, is, by eminent critics, pronounced to be of very little 
critical value,) * agrees with the Seventy in inserting the gen- 
eration of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, which is totally omitted 
in the Hebrew text. I am not ignorant that Dr Hales, and other 
learned men who reject the Hebrew Chronology, do yet agree 
with it in excluding the generation of Cainan ; but if St Luke's 

* See Home's Introduction, vol. ii. Part I. chap. ii. 



APPENDIX II. Ill 

Gospel is a part of the inspired word of God, all their arguments 
cannot impugn the authority of this Evangelist.* 

11. The foregoing arguments, in favour of the Greek postdi- 
luvian Chronology, and in refutation of that of the Hebrew text, 
appear to me so entirely conclusive, that I think it unnecessary 
to add any thing more upon this branch of the subject. 

V. 1. But there is another part of the Chronology of the Old 

Testament in which the Hebrew text expressly contradicts the 
testimony of the Apostle Paul; who, in Acts xiii. 19, 20, informs 
us, that from the division of the land of Canaan by Joshua till 
Samuel the prophet, there were 450 years, being the w^hole 
length of the administration of the Judges, the last of whom was 
Eli. The natural construction of St Paul's words, therefore, is, 
that the period elapsed at the death of Eli. Now, if to this au- 
thentic period of the Apostle, we add the following: — 



450 years. 

From the Exodus to the division of the land, . . .46 
The servitude after the death of Eli (1 Sam. vii. 2), . 20 

Administration of Samuel after the victory of Mizpeh, . .12 
Reign of Saul (Acts xiii. 21), ..... 40 

Reign of David, . ... . . . . .40 

Three years of Solomon, ...... 3 



The result is, from the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple, 611 years. 

* The reader will find a vindication of the genuineness of the postdiluvian 
Cainan in Dr Russell's Connection of Sacred and Profane History, vol. i. pp. 
159—167. 

I shall now add one or two short remarhs on this point. 1st. TJie generation of 
Cainan forms apart of the Chronology of Demetrius, which is cited in the Pre- 
face of this Work. Noiv, according to Mr Cullimore (Morning Watch, vol. iv. p. 
405), Demetrius lived at an earlier period than is mentioned hy Dr Hales, who 
states him to have written in the reign of Ptolemy Philopator. But Mr Cullimore 
identifies him with Demetrius Phalerceus, icho superintended the translation of the 
Seventy in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 277. 

Dr Hales, in his reasons for rejecting it, gives one wherein he is inconsistent 
with himself, viz. that it is omitted hy the Septuagint in 1 Chron, i. 24. But 
does not the learned tvriter affirm, that the spurious number of 480 years of 1 Kings 
vi. 1, has been surreptitiously foisted into the text of the Seventy, and, if so, where 
was the difficidty of leaving out Cainan in deference to the same authority of the 
Hebrew text ? Evidence is produced in these pages, that the Greek text has been 
altered in other passages for the same reason, viz. to make it harmonize with the 
Hebrew. Moreover, St Luke is a witness, that Cainan was in the text of the 
LXX. u'hen he wrote his Gospel, for he copied the generations from that version. 



112 



APPENDIX II. 



This period is, in the present Hebrew text of 1 Kings vi. 1, cur- 
tailed to 480 years ; and the Greek text, as it now stands, accords 
with the Hebrew (480) ; being less than the truth, if St Paul 
was inspired of God, 

131 years. 

The mode in which this was effected was by rejecting the whole 
periods of the Servitudes in the Book of Judges, which accounts 
for Ill 

And the Servitude after the death of Eli (1 Sam. vii. 2) 20 

131 years. 

2. Now, it being undeniable that St Paul, an inspired Apostle, 
must have spoken the truth, it follows that our present Hebrew 
copies contain an utterly erroneous Chronology in the text above 
cited, of 1 Kings vi. 1. It is evident that tl^e period has been 
curtailed for the same end as the postdiluvian Chronology ; and 
what this end was, cannot be reasonably doubted : it was, to prove 
that our Lord's coming was at too early an age of the world to 
consist with the truth of universal tradition, that Messiah was 
to appear about the middle of the sixth millenary of the world ; 
and, consequently, that he could not be the Messiah. 

3. By thus curtailing the period from the Exodus to the build- 
ing of the temple, the Chronology of the Book of Judges, and 
the earlier part of 1 Samuel, is thrown into the most inextri- 
cable confusion, as may be seen by a reference to the margins of 
our English Bibles, which, as is well known, follow the Hebrew 
Chronology. I shall proceed to give some examples of this babel 
of times. It will be found that the eighteen years' Servitude 
under the Philistines and Ammonites, from which Jephthah 
delivered Israel, is made to commence in the years, c. 1161; 
and the forty years' Servitude in the time of Samson is placed in 
the very same year, 1161. Again, the birth of Samuel the 
prophet is placed in the year b. c. 1171, and that of Samson in 
1161, ten years later. The administration of Eli is placed from 
the year b. c. 1171 to 1 141, when the ark is captured and Eli dies. 
The administration of Jephthah is placed between 1143 and 1137, 
partly contemporaneous with that of Samuel, and also of Eli, and 
partly after the death of Eli. The administrations of Ibzan, 
Elon, and Abdon, are placed between the years 1137 and 1112, 
contemporaneous with and after that of Samson, and contempo- 
raneous with Samuel. 



APPENDIX II. 



ll;3 



4. The marriage of Samson is placed in the yery same year 
with the capture of the ark and the death of Eli, namely, in the 
year b. c. 1141, and he is made to judge Israel to the year 1120, 
i. e. during the very time of the Servitude, after the death of 
Eli. And the death of Samson is placed in the same year, 1120, 
that Samuel assembled the tribes of Israel at Mizpeh, and defeated 
the Philistines. But if the administrations of Samson, andJeph- 
thah, of Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon, were thus posterior to that of 
Eli, how is it that the Book of Judges, which certainly, on the 
face of it, bears the aspect of being a history of Israel from the 
death of Joshua to that of Samson, is wholly silent as to the 
administration of Eli, together with the remarkable circumstance 
of the capture of the ark ? The Tables of Usher, indeed, as 
printed in Dr Russell's Connection, vol. i. p. 73, avoid some of 
these absurdities ; but the manner in which they effect this is, by 
omitting all notice whatever of the seven Servitudes, reaching 
through the period, already mentioned, of one hundred and thirty- 
one years : and, therefore, Usher's Chronology is no less incon- 
sistent with the narrative of the Books of Judges and the 1st of 
Samuel, than with St Paul's number in Acts xiii. 20. 

5. I shall now give a Table of the real Chronology of the Scrip- 
tures, from the division of the land of Canaan to the foundation 
of the Temple, in entire harmony with the words of St Paul in 



Acts xiii. 

* Joshua and the Elders, , . . . . . *19 years. 

1. Servitude — Cushan-Rishathaim, .... 8 
Othniel, 40 

2. Servitude — Moab, 18 

Ehud, . . 80 

* Shanigar, *1 

3. Servitude — Canaanites, 20 

Deborah and Barak, ...... 40 

4. Servitude — Midianites, . . . . , 7 
Gideon, . . . . , . . .40 
Abimeleeh, ....... 3 

Tolah, 23 

Jair, 22 

5. Servitude — Ammonites, . . . , .18 
Jephthah, ........ 6 

Ibzan, 7 

Elon, . . . ... . . 10 

Abdon, 8 

Take forward, . . 370 
P 



114 



APPENDIX 11. 



Brought forward, . . . 370 
6. Servitude — Philistines, (twenty years of which Sanason 

judged Israel,) .... 40 

Eli, ....... 40 



450 

Thus we see how entirely the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
when strictly examined, harmonize with St Paul; and in the 
above numbers, the two marked with asterisks are the only ones 
not expressly mentioned in the Books of Joshua and Judges, be- 
ing supplied by Josephus. I shall now continue the Chronology 
till the foundation of the Temple. 

Samuel the Prophet. 
7. Servitude — ^Philistines, while the ark was at Kirjath-jearim, 20 years. 
Administration of Samuel. The length of it not being 
mentioned in Scripture, the period is supplied from 



Josephus, . . . . . .12 

Saul, ...... 40 

David, . . . . . .40 

Solomon three years, .... 3 

115 

Which, added to the former period of . . 450 

Makes, from division of the lands till the Temple founded, 565 
Add from Exodus to Division, ... 46 

Makes, from Exodus to Temple founded, . . 611* 



6. This period of six hundred and eleven years, from the Exo- 

* For the information of such of my readers as may not have seen my Tract oji 
the Jubilean Chronology, I shall state what are the corrections which the Chrono- 
logy of this period received in that Tract: — 1st. The period of Joshua and the 
Elders, or Anarchy, is computed to he 20 years instead of 19. 2c?. The 1 year 
of Shamgar is deducted, as I have become convinced on more careful examination^ 
that the 80 years mentioned in Judg. iii. 30, include his administration also. I may 
here state also, that Ahul Pharaji, in his Historia Dynastiarum, (p. 25,) assigns to 
Ehud 62 years, and to Shamgar 18, which make up the sum of 80 years. 8d. The 
third correction in this period, although it is first in time, is, that by comparing 
Joshua xiv. 10, with Num. xiii. 23, I now make the division of the land in the 41th 
instead of the A6th, from the Exodus. By these corrections, St PauVs number of 
450 years remains unaffected, the addition of 1 year being balanced by the sub- 
traction of the same period ; but the addition of 1 year to the interval before the 
division of the lands, makes the ivhole period to the Exodus 612, instead o/ 611 
years. 



APPENDIX II. 



115 



dus to the foundation of the Temple, is in entire harmony with 
the testimony of Josephus, in one passage of his Antiquities, 
(book XX. chap. x. sect. 1,) where he states it to have been six 
hundred and twelve years. The difference between current and 
complete time makes the additional year. In other places, how- 
ever, Josephus gives the number of five hundred and ninety-one 
years as the length of this period. I shall briefly consider this 
point before closing this Paper. In the meanwhile, I proceed to 
remark, that as to the next period in the Chronology of the Old 
Testament, namely, from the foundation of the Temple to the 
Christian era, there is not a great difference of opinion among 
our learned writers. The lowest estimate of the length of this 
period is that of Usher, 1012 years; and the highest that of 
Hales, 1027 years. The first part of it, from the foundation to 
the destruction of the Temple, is thus estimated :* 

By Usher, at . . " . . . 424 years. 

Scaliger and Lightfoot ..... 427 

Jackson ..... . 428 

Russell ...... 430 

Hales . . . . . . 441 

7. The principal reasons of the difference between the shortest 
and the longest of these computations ^x^, first, that Usher con- 
tracts the reign of Jehoram, or Joram, king of Judah, from 
eight years to four, supposing him to have reigned four years 
conjunctly with his father ; whereas Hales and Russell both make 
him to have reigned the full period of eight years alone. The 
truth, I think, is between the two. In 2 Kings viii. 16, Jeho- 
ram of Judah is said to have begun to reign in the fifth year of 
Joram of Israel ; and in the same chapter, ver. 25, we learn that 
Ahaziah began to reign in the tioelfth year of Joram of Israel ; 
so that the reign of Jehoram of Judah must have been from the 
fifth to the twelfth of Joram of Israel, that is, seven years. It 
is, however, said, in 2 Kings ix. 29, that Ahaziah began to reign 
in the eleventh year of Joram of Israel ; and as he was slain at 
the same time with Joram, who reigned twelve years, and Aha- 
ziah's owni reign was one year, it would appear that the last ac- 

* I derive this information from Dr Russell's Connection of Sacred and Pro- 
fane History, 



116 



APPENDIX II. 



count must be the true one ; which reduces the reign of Jehoram 
of Judah to six years, from the fifth to the eleventh of Joram of 
Israel. 

8. In the second place, there is a difference of eleven years 
between the death of Amaziah, king of Judah, and the accession 
of Uzziah, where Hales places an interregnum of that number of 
years, which is not to be found in the scheme of Usher and most 
other Chronologists, and is expressly denied by Russell. Dr Hales 
has here, however, the support of Dr Lightfoot ; and the founda- 
tion of their reasoning is, that the texts of 2 Kings xiv. 17, 23, 
compared with xv. 1, discover to us that Amaziah of Judah lived 
fifteen years after the death of Jehoash of Israel, and, therefore, 
his death was in the sixteenth year of Jeroboam II. of Israel, 
the successor of Jehoash : but Uzziah, or Azariah, did not re- 
ceive the kingdom till the twenty-seventh of Jeroboam; and, 
consequently, there must have been an interregnum of eleven or 
twelve years. The explanation of this, given in the margins of 
our larger Bibles, seems to rest on no Scriptural foundation. 

VI. — 1. I now proceed to compare the foregoing Chronological 
conclusions with my observations on the Jubilean period, which 
you were kind enough to insert in your Vlllth Number, although 
a contemporary journalist,* in his zeal for the Hebrew text — 
greater, it would appear, even than that of the laborious Kenni- 
cott and Bishop Walton, who both rejected the Hebrew Chrono- 
logy, as well as a host of learned and pious men — refused to ad- 
mit my Paper : and I shall premise what I have to ofier with 
the following general observations : — 

First. It seems to me that the Jubilean period must have be- 
gun to be reckoned either from the year of the entrance of Joshua 
and the children of Israel into the promised land, or from the 

* There might be just reasons for not offending Jewish prejudices, by calling 
in question the integrity of the Hebrew text in that particular magazine. Had 
the editor given such reasons, I should not have said a word against them. But 
the reasons which he did give were wholly insufficient. The editor says, he could 
not consistently give admission to a theory that proceeds upon a supposition that 
the Hebrew text has been falsified. Is it then, it may be asked, by the suppres- 
sion of discussion, that the Hebrew text is to be vindicated ? On the same prin- 
ciple, this editor, because he cannot for a moment entertain such a supposition, 
would, had they lived in his day, have excluded from the pages of his work the 
communications of such men as Walton and Kennicott. 



APPENDIX II. 



117 



division of the land, which ^Yas completed in the seventh year 
afterwards ; and that this year was counted a Sabhatic year. I 
think Dr Hales's date of the first Sabbatic year erroneous, though 
I cannot now fully give my reasons for this opinion. 

Second. For the reasons formerly stated, I think the first year 
of our Lord's public ministry was a year of Jubilee ; although I 
deem it not impossible that his baptism, in the year before, when 
he was publicly anointed with the Holy Ghost as the Son of God, 
may have been the year of Jubilee. 

Third. Since the year of our Lord 28, r.xed by Dr Hales as 
the first of his ministry, does not seem to accord with the gen- 
erally received opinion, that his ministry continued just three 
years and a half; and as we must place his crucifixion in a. d. 
33, to harmonize with the seventy weeks of Daniel, I feel dis- 
posed to adopt Prideaux's Chronology of these events ; and he 
places our Lord's first appearance in the ministry in the autumn 
of the year 29 ; from whence to Nisan in 33, are just three years 
and a half. His baptism was probably. in the year before, 
namely, 28. 

Fourth. If the principles above laid down be correct, then it 
follows that the period beginning either with the passage of Jor- 
dan, or the division of the land of Canaan, and ending with our 
Lord's appearance, must be a Jubilean period ; that is, it must 
contain a number divisible by forty-nine, and leaving no remain- 
der ; or, rather leaving a remainder of one, as a second Sabbath 
is the eighth day from the first, and the Jubilee was thus the 
fiftieth current year from the first of the series, (Lev. xxv. 10.) 
Thus, if the year of the division of the lands was numbered 1, 
the next Sabbatic year would be the year 8 ; and, supposing the 
principles of my former Paper to be correct, the Jubilee year of 
the thirty-third Jubilee must have been the sixteen hundred and 
eighteenth year of the series; or 49 X 33 = 1617 + 1 = 1618. 

Fifth. In so long a period of years, with such uncertainties as 
often embarrass our conclusions, we are not, however, to expect 
complete accuracy ; it ought to satisfy us if we nearly approxi- 
mate to it. 

2. Assuming the foregoing principles as the basis of my reason- 
ing, I shall now lay before you two different views of the above 
Jubilean period. 

First Vieic.—lii liie calculations given in the foregoing pages. 



118 



APPENDIX II. 



which rest upon the inspired authority of the Apostle Paul him- 
self, it has been clearly proved, that 

From the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple, there 

was precisely a period of . . . .611 years. 

Deducting from which the interval from the Exodus to the 

passage of Jordan ..... 40 

Leaves from the entrance into Canaan to the Temple founded 571 years. 

Add, from the foundation of the Temple to the Christian era, 

according to the shortest calculation, being that of Usher 1012 

Add deficiency in Usher's estimate of the reign of Jehoram 2 

Add to the commencement of our Lord's Ministry . 29 

Makes the total length of period from entrance into Canaan 

to our Lord's appearance in the ministry . . 1614 years, 

Which is just thirty-two Jubilees and forty-six years, or four years short of the 
required sum of 1618 years, to make up the length of thirty-three Jubilees 
and one year. 

Second Vieiv, founded on the longer calculation of Dr Hales, 
with an interregnum of eleven years between Amaziah and Uz- 
ziah ; and supposing the Jubilean period to have commenced at 
the division of the land, in the seventh year from the entrance 
into Canaan. 

From the Exodus to the Foundation of the Temple . 611 years. 

Deduct from the Exodus to the Division of the Land . 46 

Remains from the Division to the Foundation of Temple 665 years. 

Add from foundation of Temple to Christian era . . 1027 

Deduct excess in years of Jehoram . . . 2 

1025 

Add to beginning of our Lord's ministry ... 29 

Total length of period from the division of the Land till our 

Lord's ministry began . . . . . 1619 years. 

Which is thirty-three Jubilees and two years, being one year more than the 
required sum of 1618 years.* 

3. Taking St Paul's number, in Acts xiii. 20, as the basis of 
our calculations, it seems, therefore, demonstrable, that the num- 

* It will he understood that I oidy considered these calculations as approxima- 
tions to the tridh, even when they were written. The EXACT TRUTH, with the ex- 
ception of 2 years, as to the date of the destruction of the First Temple, now cor- 
rected, I believe to he contained in my Tract on the Jubilean Chronology. 



APPENDIX II. 



119 



ber of Jubilees between the passage of Jordan and the beginning 
of our Lord's ministry in a. d. 29, or from the division of the land 
to the same era, was precisely thirty-three ; and, though our cal- 
culation does not bring out the period with perfect exactness, this 
is not to be wondered at, when we consider the gTeat difficulties 
which exist as to the Chronology of the kingdoms of Judah and 
Israel from Rehoboam to the destruction of the Temple, so that 
" this period has hitherto been considered as the Gordian knot of 
sacred Chronology." * 

4. If it be thought more probable that the year of our Lord's 
baptism was the Jubilee year, then it throws back the calculation 
one year, to a. d. 28, and in that case the second view comes out 
quite exact without a fraction. 

5. If, in the next place, we calculate a second series of Jubilees, 
reckoning a. d. 28 as a Jubilee year, we shall find that the year 

1792 is the 1764th year from 28, in complete time, or the 1765tli 
in current time, i. e. it is the Jubilee year of the 36th Jubilee ; 
and if we fix upon a. d. 29 as the year of Jubilee, then the year 

1793 was the 36th Jubilee. Thus, in either case, a period of 33 
-f. 36 = 69 Jubilees, from the passage of Jordan, or the division 
of the land, did certainly expire either in the year 1792 or 1793 ; 
and the seventieth Jubilee will elapse in the year 1841 or 1842, 
which entirely confirms the conclusions contained in my Paper 
in your Number for December last, page 874 : and as the seven- 
tieth Jubilee is, for the reasons therein assigned, the Jubilee of 
Redemption, and we are within ten or eleven years of its end ; 
let us gird up the loins of our minds in these evil days, and wait 
patiently for the gTace that is to be brought unto us at the reve- 
lation of Jesus Christ.f 

6. It will be seen that, in the foregoing calculations, I have 
departed from Dr Hales's principles, as to the commencement of 
the Jubilean period from the first Sabbatical year subsequently 
to the division of the land. The reason of this is, that I cannot 
discern any warrant for his having introduced a period of ten 
years for the anarchy after the death of Joshua, professing to 
found it on the true Chronology of Josephus. Having tried the 
number of 476 years, given at the commencement of the fifth 
book of this writer's Antiquities of the Jews, I find, that sup- 



* Hales, vol. ii. p. 372. 



f 1 Pet. i. 3. 



120 



APPENDIX II. 



plying from Judges x. 2, the length of the administration of 
Tolah, being twenty-three years — which is omitted in the text of 
Josephus — and also inserting the administration of Abdon eight 
years — to which no term of years is assigned by Josephus — the 
result agrees precisely with the sum of 476 years from the death 
of Moses to that of Eli. If my space would permit it, without 
encroaching too much upon your pages, I should be glad to insert 
the whole series of this Chronology.* 

7. It is, however, observable, that Josephus's sum of 476 years 
from the death of Moses to that of Eli, (six years being deducted 
from it till the division of the land,) exceeds St Paul's period of 
450 years precisely by twenty years ; and this arises from an ex- 
cess of the same number in the years of the sixth Servitude, and 
of Samson and Eli, which period Josephus extends to one hun- 
dred years,f instead of eighty, the true length of it, as most 
Chronologists are agreed. There is, indeed, a difference of opin- 
ion among them as to the manner of arranging Samson's admin- 
istration of twenty years, some of them placing it as a part of 
the sixth Servitude of forty years, and others conjoining Sam- 
son with Eli in the first twenty years of his administration. I 
have adopted the former alternative ; and my reason for it is, 
that, in Judges xv. 20, we are informed that Samson judged Is- 
rael twenty years, in the days of the Philistines. 

8. While Josephus thus errs by an excess of twenty years in 
the whole period above mentioned, he errs on the opposite side 
in the period from the death of Eli till the foundation of the 
Temple in the third of Solomon; making this interval to be 
only seventy-five years instead of one hundred and fifteen, its 
true length, as follows : — 

Seventh Servitude^ — Philistines (1 Sam. vii. 2) . 20 years. 

Concluding part of the Administration of Samuel after the 

victory at Mizpeh — (see above, p. 114) . .12 

Saul's reign (Acts xiii. 21) . . . . 40 

David, and three years of Solomon . . .43 

Total from death of Eli till the foundation of the Temple 115 
* See chap. v. of this Work. 

f See Dr Russell's Connection, vol. i. p. 1 28, Table iv. 

\ This Servitude was evidently a part of the administration of Samuel, as the 
words in 2 Sam. vii. 15, imply that he was judge from the death of Eli. 



APPENDIX II. 



121 



9. Josephus seems to have fallen into this error, by a mistake 
with respect to the mieaning of the words in 1 Sam. vii. 2,* as if 
they signified that the ark was altogether only twenty years at 
Kirjath-jearim, whereas, if the Hebrew text and that of the 
Seventy be closely examined, in that place they will be foiuid to 
say only, that at the time there referred to the ark had now been 
twenty years at Kirjath-jearim ; and we know, from 2 Sam. vi. 
1, that it continued there for nearly sixty years longer. But 
Josephus, supposing the whole of this period to be only twenty 
years, in order to approximate to it he rejects from his Chrono- 
logy the period of the seventh Servitude under the Philistines, 
twenty years, and further shortens the reign of Saul from forty 
years to twenty ; and in this way he makes the whole sum of 
years, from the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple, to be 
only 591, as foUovrs : — 

From the Exodus to the death of Moses, . . 40 years. 

From the death of Moses to that of Eli, . . 476 

From the death of Eli to that of Saul, . . .32 

David, and three years of Solomon, ... 43 

Total from Exodus to foundation of Temple, . 591 years. 

This is the sum of years which is adopted by Dr Russell, in 
his Connection of Sacred and Profane History ; and he reasons 
at great length in its favour ; but when he fills up the particulars, 
he is obliged to vary considerably from Josephus himself, and 
likewise from the Scriptures ; and this he does by curtailing the 
administration of Eli to twenty years, making the former twenty 
years of it to be contemporary with the administration of Samson. 

10. From what has been said above, it is manifest, that 

From Josephus's period of . . . .591 years 

There must first be deducted an excess of twenty years 

previous to the death of Eli, . . 20 

Leaving .... 571 

To which being added the deficiency above-mentioned, 

from the death of Eli to the third of Solomon, 40 

Makes the true length of the period from the Exodus 

to the foundation of the Temple, . . 611 years. 

* See his Antiquities, B. vi. chap. i. sect. 4. 
O 



122 



APPENDIX II. 



11. The following reasons also render it quite evident, to my 
mind, that both Dr Hales's period of 621 years and Dr Russell's 
of 591, (from Josephus) are wrong. It will be found that neither 
of these numbers harmonizes with St Paul's period of 4 50 years. 
The former makes them end ten years before the death of Eli ; 
but this is quite inconsistent with St Pauls words, which evidently 
imply that the 450 years reach to the end of the government of 
the Judges, or, in other words, to the death of Eli, the last of 
the Judges. 

12. On the other hand, Dr Russell's period of 591 years brings 
down the end of St Paul's period to the termination of the twenty 
years of the seventh servitude, before the victory at Mizpeh (1 
Sam. vii.) that is, just as many years beyond the dispensation of 
the Judges, and to the end of the first part of the administration 
of Samuel the prophet ; which is no less inconsistent with the 
language of the Apostle. 

13. Again : although the number in 1 Kings vi. 1. has already 
been proved to be erroneous — (add to which, that we have nega- 
tive evidence that it was not in the text at all in the time of 
Origen*) — yet it has also been shown that it is not an imaginary 
number, but is composed of the sum total of the whole adminis- 
trations of the governors of Israel, of every description, from the 
Exodus to the third of Solomon, excluding or setting aside the 
whole sum of the servitudes. Therefore, this number has the 
same sort of relation to the truth as the evidence of a witness 
who tells as much of truth as he deems favourable to his own 
friend, and withholds the remainder. The period of 480 years 
may be divided into three parts. 

1st. From the Exodus to the Division of the Lands, . . 46 years. 
2d. From the Division to the death of Eli, .... 339 
3d. From the death of Eli to the Third of Solomon, . . 93 

480 

If to the second of these numbers be added the sum of the first 
six servitudes, 111 years; then 339 -f- 1 H = 450 (the period of St Paul. ) 

If to the third number be added the seventh 
servitude, twenty years; then 95 -f- 20= 115 

Add the first number, .... 46 

The total, as before, . . . 611 

* See the citation of that text in the ivords of Origen, in second note, p. 126 of 
this Appendix, 



APPENDIX II. 



123 



14. Now it will be found quite impossible, by any analysis of 
the larger number of Dr Hales, or the smaller one of Dr Russell, 
to make them accord with the component parts of the 480 years, 
adding the servitudes. Dr Hales's number of 621 contains 480 
years of administrations, 10 of anarchy, and 131 of servitudes. 
The learned writer may perhaps affirm, that the Scribes retained 
the years of the administrations, and rejected the one hundred 
and thirty-one of servitude, and also the ten of anarchy. But 
then these additional ten years of anarchy are not to be found 
in the Scriptures : they do not harmonize also with the sum of 
476 years contained in the Fifth Book of the Antiquities of Jo- 
sephus, as has been proved in a former page. Thus their exist- 
ence, and consequently their rejection by the Scribes, are both 
without evidence. 

15. Again; Dr Russell's smaller number, of 591 years, con- 
tains 460 of administrations and 131 of servitudes. To form 
from this the number of 480 years, the Scribes must have taken 
20 of the servitudes, and added them to their 460 of administra- 
tions ; thus violating the unity of the principle upon which they 
formed their curtailed number. In every way, therefore, we 
seem to be driven back to the nmnber of 611 years, containing 
480 of administrations, and 131 of servitudes, as the original 
which the Scribes had before them when they shortened the 
chronology by the entire rejection of the servitudes ; and thus 
even the spurious number, now found in 1 Kings vi. 1, is, from 
its relation to the authentic and original number, rendered sub- 
servient to the elucidation of the truth.* 

VII. — 1. In closing this long paper, I may, perhaps, be permit- 
ted to express a hope that I have fully vindicated the Church of 
God from the charge made against it in Mr Cullimore's paper, of 
having wilfully, and corruptly, and wickedly, altered the text of 
the oracles of God : or, to say the very least, of having most 
criminally and negligently permitted that alteration by some of 
her sons, and having afterwards connived at and participated in 

* Dr Hales has, from the Jewish chronologer David Ganz, given a different 
scheme, now adopted by them, for filling up the 480 years. Still, however, the 
origin of this curtailed number can only be accounted for in the mode I have 
adopted, which appears entirely to have escaped the notice of Dr Hales. 



124 



APPENDIX II. 



it by the reception into universal use of the version so corrupted. 
I hope I have also established, by a series of Scriptural and moral 
and historical arguments, that the copy of the Scriptures which 
has always been in the custody of the church of God — namely, 
that of the Seventy — contains the true chronology ; and that the 
original Hebrew text, which was for at least two centuries in the 
exclusive custody of the bitterest enemies of the church of God, 
and of the Lord Jesus, has been corrupted as to its chronology. 
The charge of corrupting the Sacred Text was, as we have seen, 
brought against them by Ephraim the Syrian. Justin Martyr, 
in his Dialogue with Trypho, in like manner accuses them of 
having taken away from the Greek translation of the Seventy 
many texts respecting our Lord's crucifixion and death.* And 
Ireneeus goes so far as to say, that, had the Jews foreseen the 
use which would have been made of their Scriptures, they would 
not have hesitated to burn the Scriptures, which declare that the 
Gentiles should inherit life, and that the people of Israel should 
be disinherited from the grace of God.f 



P. S. Since the foregoing paper was finished, a note has appear- 
ed in the periodical work alluded to in p. 1 16, implying that there 
is no ground for alleging a discrepancy between the words of St 
Paul in Acts xiii. 20, and those of the Old Testament in 1 Kings 
vi. 1 ; and the reason assigned for this assertion is, that we must 
distinguish between time in the dative and time in the accusative. 
I in consequence of this consulted the learned Professor of Greek 
in one of our Scottish universities, v/ho, though I am personally 
unknown to him, returned a most polite and ready answer to my 
letter. By him I am assured, that, according to the canons of 
Greek criticism, there is a material difference between an ex- 
pression of time when marked by the accusative and when mark- 
ed by the genitive or dative, " The accusative does not always 
designate duration, yet duration must always be expressed by 
the accusative." The invariable force of the dative in such 
expression is, to answer the question when^ or in what time ; not 
for what time'' Our translation of the words in Acts xiii. 20, 

iriffi rir^ajiotnoii x.ai -nvT'/iKovTci, about the spaco of 450 years," 
is therefore incorrect : that meaning would demand the accusa- 



Justin. Dial. p. 291. f Iren. Adver. Hreres. lib. iii. cap. xxiv. 



APPENDIX II. 



125 



tive. The learned Professor then adds, that the explanation of 
Mills, which refers the calculation of the 450 years to the period 
between the birth of Isaac and the division of Canaan, is cer- 
tainly that which the canons of Greek criticism require. 

Having, in reply to the letter of the learned Professor, com- 
municated to him a short syllabus of the Chronology of the pe- 
riod from the division of the land to the death of Eli, showino- 
that it exactly accords with the number of years in Acts xiii. 20, 
and having also noticed that the Syriac renders the clause in the 
same sense as our English version, (the rendering is, 

lin^ ^n'' ^^^'W |^tZ^/^m " and four hundred and fifty years he 
gave to them Judges ;") the learned Professor still informs me, 
that nothing but the admission of an anomaly in syntax 
will reconcile the Greek of Acts xiii. 20, with the English 
version." 

To the high authority of this eminent Professor, I feel that I 
must yield the most implicit deference, as it respects the canon 
of criticism. My ovm ignorance of such a canon is not wonder- 
ful, seeing it has escaped the attention of all the commentators 
and versions that I have access to in the country. Whitby, 
Scott, Dr Hales in his Chronology, and Dr Russell in his Con- 
nection of Sacred and Profane History, the Syriac (as we have 
already seen), Castalio in his Latin version, and Bishop Kidder 
in his Demonstration of Messiah, all receive the words in the 
same sense as our English version.* Whitby, in his note on the 
verse, considers and refutes the interpretation of Grotius and 
Usher, who, on the authority of a various reading, would fix the 
four hundred and fifty years to the period from the birth of Isaac 
to the division of the lands. Moreover, in the foregoing Paper 
that period has been demonstrated to be in exact accordance with 

* Doddridge is an exception to this remark. He endeavours to apply the 
number of four hundred and fifty years to the period which elapsed from the 
birth of Isaac to the division of the land, and moulds his translation and para- 
phrase accordingly ; but a perusal of his note on the text will show how much he 
was embarrassed by the difficulties of his own hypothesis, Dr Gill also, though 
he does not attempt to alter the words of our English version, puts them 
to the torture, by applying them in a manner quite inconsistent with their 
genuine meaning, and carrying back the number to the same period as Dr 
Doddridge. 



126 



APPENDIX II. 



the detailed chronology of the Books of Judges, First of Samuel, 
and St Paul's testimony of the length of the reign of Saul. 

The conclusion, therefore, which seems to be forced upon us 
is, that in Acts xiii. 20, we must admit an anomaly in Greek 
syntax. Nor do I see any difficulty in this, seeing that even 
Biills's explanation requires the supposition of two ellipses, 
marked as follows, parenthetically and4n italic : — After these 
things," {which took place) " in" {a period of) about four hun- 
dred and fifty years, he gave them judges." Now, if this be ad- 
mitted, where is the difficulty of supplying one parenthesis? 
receiving the passage in the usual sense : After these things, 
in" (a very long period of time, being) " about four hundred and 
fifty years, he gave them judges." * 

I have thought it right to set before you the above remarks in 
reference to the point in question, seeing that the objection, if 
unanswered, would so deeply affect the reasoning of the foregoing 
Paper.f 

I wdsh also to add, that since I forwarded my Paper to you I 
have had an opportunity of very hastily looking into the 19th of 
the Prolegomena of Bishop Walton, in his Polyglott Bible, on 
the comparative authority of the Chronology of the Hebrew text 
and the Seventy. I was quite surprised to discover, that some 
parts of my own reasoning so exactly accord with the Bishop's as 
to amount to a verbal agreement ; although I can with truth affirm, 
that I did not borrow even the ideas, far less the language, from 
Walton, or any other writer whatever. I had just time to copy 
the following example of almost verbal identity : — " Nec diffidere 
" potuit Sara se propter senectutem parituram aut Abraham vo- 

» My time has not permitted me to submit this remark to the learned Pro- 
fessor. 

f Since this Paper was published iri the Morning Watch, 1 have had an oppor- 
tunity of consulting another eminent Greek professor, who, after considering the 
ivords in Acts xiii. 20, told me verbally, that he thought we must admit an ano- 
maly in the Greek syntax, justifying the sense of our English version. I have 
further found, that Eusebius, icho himself wrote in Greek, gives to the passage in 
his Chronicon the same sense as it has in our English Bibles. Again : there is a 
quotation from Origen in the Dissertatio Generalis of Dr Kennicott, p. 36, 
wherein Origen cites the Greek text of 1 Kings v. 18, and connects it with vi. 1, 
as follows :——llToificcffciv rov; Xi^ovg Keit ra, ^vXec r^ttriv inffiv tv rco nTa^roj 
iTii f/.'/i\)i ^ivTi^u BacriXiuovros tou BairiXiw; '2oXo/u,u)>tos £cr; Iff^anX, &c. and it will 
be seen, that in the Greek, of ichich the sense is, " the?/ made ready stones and 



APPENDIX II. 



127 



luptati operam daturum cum Abraham erat tantum annorum 
" 99 Sara aliquot annis junior et oculis utrique viderent avos^ aba- 
" vos, tritavos et eorum avos et abavos annorum ducentorum 300 

et 400 jilios procreantes,'^ 

" timber THREE YEARS, and in the FOURTH YEAR of the reign of King Solomon 
" over Israel the words thrg^ years are in the Dative case, according to the 
idiom of the passage of Acts, which is under discussion. The clause quoted 
from the Greek text of Josephus, in p. 45 of the present Work, as to the du- 
ration of the Anarchy, presents another example of the same anomaly; the 
Greek words for altogether ten years, and besides them eight, being in the 
Dative. 



APPENDIX III. 



REMARKS ON THE VISION CONTAINED IN THE FIRST 
AND SECOND CHAPTERS OF ZECHARIAH. 



In those projihecies of the Old Testament which relate to the 
kingdom of the Messiah, we often find that the events of distant 
ages are hlended together in the same passages ; the first advent 
is made a type or emblem of the second coming of the Lord 
Messiah, and the circumstances of his personal ministry upon 
earth, are immediately connected with the glorious restoration of 
his people Israel in the last ages. A memorable example of this 
mode of divine prediction, is to be met with in the sixty-first chapter 
of Isaiah, the first three verses of which evidently relate to those 
works of mercy, which were to distinguish the appearance of the 
Lord Messiah in his state of humiliation, while, in the fourth 
verse, the prophet passes on in an abrupt and sudden manner to 
the future restoration : " And they shall build the old wastes ; 
they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the 
waste cities, the desolations of many generations ; and strangers 
shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall he 
your plowmen and vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests 
of the Lord: men shall call you the ministers of our God: ye 
shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast 
yourselves.'' 

Thus also in denouncing the destruction of the ancient enemies 
of the Church of God, the Holy Ghost oftentimes inspired his 
servants the prophets, to utter predictions which had only an in- 
choate fulfilment in the judgments inflicted on those nations, 
which were the immediate objects of tiieir denunciations, but 



APPENDIX nr. 



1-29 



shall have a more full and complete accomplishment, in the cala- 
mities which are to overwhelm the enemies of the church in the 
last ages. In the xiiith chapter of Isaiah, may be seen an exam- 
ple of this double sense of prophecy ; for while this passage un- 
questionably related, in the first instance, to the desolation of 
ancient Babylon, it is no less certain that it looks forward also to 
the destruction of the mystical Babylon, or Rome antichristian. 
This double sense of the passage last mentioned, is held by some 
of the ablest commentators, as Mr Lowth, Dr Gill, and Mr Fa- 
ber ; and a reference to the chapters which precede and follow it, 
will leave no doubt in the mind of any person conversant with 
the style of the prophetical books, that the opinion advanced by 
these waiters is accurate. 

The foregoing observations are intended to be introductory to 
the consideration of a very remarkable vision, rer )rded in the two 
first chapters of the prophecy of Zechariah, on which I design to 
offer some remarks. 

The prophecy alluded to, begins in the 7th verse of the first 
chapter, and was promulgated among the returned Jews, to en- 
courage them to proceed in the work of the temple, which they 
had recommenced in obedience to the word of the Lord, spoken 
a few months before, by the mouth of the prophet Haggai, as 
w^e are informed in the book which bears his name, i. 12 : " Then 
Zeruhbahel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech 
the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice 
of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as 
the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before 
the Lord, Then spahe Haggai the Lord's messenger, in the Jjord's 
message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord, 
And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Sheal- 
tiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech 
the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people ; and 
they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts their 
God:' 

In its primary meaning, the prophecy of Zechariah on which 
we are about to treat, relates to the restoration from Babylon, 
which had already been begun, but was not yet accomplished. 
But it is only in a subordinate sense that it is applicable to this 
event ; or to speak, perhaps, with greater accuracy, the restora- 
tion from Babylon is used, in the vision now under consideration, 

R 



130 



APPENDIX III. 



as a type or shadow of the final restoration of Israel in the last 
ages. The language, tlierefore, is of that mixed nature, as to 
apply partly to the type, but mainly to the antitype. 

The vision was seen by the prophet on the 24th of the month 
Sehat, in the second year of Darius Hystaspis, chap. i. 8. 

" 1 saw by nighty and behold, a man riding upon a red horse, 
and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom,^ 
There can he no doubt with respect to this personage on the red 
horse ; he is manifestly the Lord Messiah himself, appearing in 
the character of captain of the Lord's host, in which he formerly 
revealed himself to his servant Joshua, (see Joshua v. 13, 14.) 
He rides on a red horse, probably with a reference to those bloody 
wars, by which the kingdom of ancient Babylon was overthrown, 
to make way for the restoration of the Jewish state after the 
captivity, and also to those more awful scenes of blood, which 
shall precede the second advent and final restoration. — " And he 
stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom** By the 
myrtle trees, we are certainly to understand his true spiritual 
church among the Jews at that period ; and in the ultimate 
sense, his church universal in the last ages, immediately before 
the redemption of his people Israel from their present captivity. 
Myrtle trees are, on account of their beauty, used to typify the 
righteous, who are adorned with the beauties of holiness. The 
myrtle trees where the Lord Messiah stood, were in the bottom, 
or in a low place ; and perhaps this may signify that deep per- 
sonal humility, which is the most conspicuous feature of the 
character of the saints, or it may indicate the low condition of 
the Jewish nation before their first and second restorations. 

And behind him were red horses, speckled, and white. Then 
said I, O my Lord, what are these 9 And the angel that talked 
with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be. And the 
man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said. These 
are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the 
earth:' 

By these horses and their riders we are probably to understand 
the instruments whom God employs in the execution of his pur- 
poses in the world. The red horses may denote the ministers of 
his vengeance and wrath, the speckled horses perhaps signify the 
ministers of his general providence in all its varied aspects, the 
white horses may describe the ministers of mercy. 



APPENDIX in. 



131 



" And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the 
myrtle trees^ and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, 
and, behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest,'' 

In the beginning of the reign of Darius Hystaspis, the whole 
Persian empire, the scene of the vision, enjoyed a profound peace, 
and this state of tranquillity is here reported to the Lord Mes- 
siah, by the ministers of his will. Such is the literal meaning 
of the passage. But it has also, like the whole vision, a more 
remote or ultimate fulfilment, and it probably looks forward to 
a period of universal peace, which shall immediately precede the 
second restoration of Israel from their captivity by the Romans. 
According to this view of the clause, it may correspond in its ul- 
timate sense with that passage of the Apocalypse, where four 
angels are seen holding the four winds of the earth, for the seal- 
ing of the servants of God in their foreheads, in the midst of the 
awful convulsions of the sixth seal. 

" Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of 
hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the 
cities of Judahf against which thou hast had indignation these three- 
score and ten years. And the Lord answered the angel that talked 
with me with good words and comfortable words,'' 

The SEVENTY YEARS here mentioned by the angel, are the years 
of the captivity in Babylon, from the ninth year of Zedekiah, 
when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, a. c. 590, to the 
second year of Darius Hystaspis, a. c. 320. But this number 
has also a mystical signification, and probably represents the 

WHOLE PERIOD OF THE CAPTIVITIES AND DISPERSIONS OF JUDAH, UN- 
TIL THE FINAL REDEMPTION OF THE NATION. 

** So the angel that communed with me, said unto me, Cry thou, 
saying. Thus saith the Lord of hosts ; I am jealous for Jerusaletn, 
and for Zion, with a great jealousy. And I am very sore dis' 
pleased with the heathen that are at ease : for 1 was but a little 
displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. Therefore thus 
saith the Lord ; I am returned to Jerusalem vjith mercies: my 
house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall 
be stretched forth upon Jerusalem, Cry yet, saying, Thus saith 
the Lord of hosts ; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread 
abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose 
Jerusalem^ 

This passage, like all that precedes it, has a primary reference 



132 



APPENDIX III. 



to the restoration from Babylon : but it looks forward for its ul- 
timate and glorious accomplishment in the re-establishment of 
Judah and Israel in the divine favour, after their present long 
continued captivity: and if any doubt remain on this point, the 
next clause of the prophecy will remove it, and show that it is 
only in an inchoate sense, that the vision is applicable to the re- 
demption from ancient Babylon. 

" Then I lifted up mine ei/es, and saw, and behold four horns. 
And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these ? 
And he answered me. These are the horns which have scattered Ju- 
dah, Israel, and Jerusalem, And the Lord shewed me four car- 
penters. Then said I, What came these to do ? And he spake, 
saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no 
man did lift up his head : but these are come to fray them, to cast 
out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the 
land of Judah to scatter it." 

Under the emblem of four horns, the prophet here sees the 
four Gentile monarchies of Babylon, Persia, Macedon, and Rome, 
which were successively to have rule over the people of God, 
until their final restoration ; and he is carried forward in the 
spirit of prophecy, to that period, when the stone cut out of the 
mountain without hands, shall smite the image upon his feet of 
iron and clay, and break them in pieces. 

Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, 
broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer 
thrashing floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place 
was found for them : and the stone that smote the image became a 
great mountain, and filled the whole earths 

The same glorious events are, in the vision of Zechariah, por- 
trayed under the image of four carpenters, who come to cast out 
the four horns, or to destroy the whole fabric of the Gentile 
monarchies, preparatory to the establishment of the glorious king- 
dom of Christ. This scene of the four carpenters belongs to the 
same period as the seven apocalyptic vials, and it demonstrates 
the view which is here taken of this vision, as appertaining to the 
last ages, to be true, — since the excision of the four monarchies 
can only belong to the concluding scene of divine prophecy. 

*' / lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold, a man 



* Danid ii. 35. 



APPENDIX III. 



133 



loith a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, Whither goest 
thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, and to see 
what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. And 
behold, the angel that talked with me ivent forth, and another angel 
went out to meet him, and said unto him, Run, speak to this young 
man, saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls, 
for the multitude of men aiid cattle therein : For I, saith the Lord, 
will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in 
the midst of her.'' 

It is manifest, that nothing occurred during the interval which 
elapsed between the restoration of the Jews from the captivity in 
Babylon, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, which 
in any degree corresponds with the description here given. The 
language is too magnificent to be applied to the state of Jerusa- 
lem in that period, and the clause will only receive its accom- 
plishment at the era of the future restoration, when the whole 
nation of the Jews, and likewise the ten tribes, shall be brought 
back to their own land, and the Lord shall in a literal sense be a 
wall of fire round, about Jerusalem, and the glory in the midst of 
her. 

" Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, 
when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion and in Jerusa- 
lem, and before his ancients gloriously T * " In that day shall this 
song be sung in the land of Judah ; We have a strong city ; sal- 
vation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks. Open ye the 
gates, that the righteous nation, ivhich keepeth the truth, may enter 
in."f 

In the next clause of the prophecy, a call is given to the peo- 
ple of the Lord to flee from the lands of their captivity. 

" Ho, ho, flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord, for I 
have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the 
Lord. Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of 
Babylon. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, After the glory hath 
he sent me unto the stations which spoiled you : for he that toucheth 
you, toucheth the apple of his eye. For behold, I will shake mine 
hand upon them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants : and 
ye shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me^ 

Under the figure of an exhortation to flee from the land of the 



* Isaiah xxiv. 23. 



f Ibid. xxvi. I, 2. 



134 



APPENDIX III. 



north, and a call to Zion to deliver herself from Babylon, is here 
concealed a prophetic command to the Jews in the last ages, to 
come out of the lands of their dispersions. He who calls them, 
is Jehovah of hosts ; and he declares himself to be sent by Jeho- 
vah of hosts. The speaker is, therefore, the Almighty Word of 
Jehovah, or the Lord Messiah ; and in the last clause, there is 
an evident allusion to the past unbelief and spiritual darkness of 
his ancient people, inasmuch as the words, ye shall know that Je- 
hovah of hosts hath sent W2e," manifestly imply that heretofore his 
people had remained ignorant of this interesting and important 
truth. In the 9th verse are also denounced the awful judgments 
that shall overtake the nations which have afflicted his people, 
alluding to the destruction which awaits the antichristian states, 
at the close of the apocalyptic vials in the great day of the Lord. 

" Sing and re/oice, O daughter of Zion ; for, lo, I come^ and I 
will dwell in the midst of thee^ saith the Lord, And many nations 
shall be joined to the Lord in that day^ and shall be my people : 
and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the 
Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit 
Judah his portion in the holy land, and shall choose Jerusalem, 
again," 

The whole of this description refers to the period of the second 
restoration, and it predicts the blessed consequences of the esta- 
blishment of the reign of the Messiah, among his ancient people. 

Many nations shall in that day be joined to the Lord,'* This is 
that final and glorious influx of the Gentiles into the church, 
whereof the events of the apostolic age were but an earnest and 
foretaste, the conversion of the Gentiles in that period having 
been as disproportionate in magnitude to the scene here disclosed 
to view, as was the basket of first fruits brought by the pious Is- 
raelite to set before the Lord in obedience to the commandment, 
Deut. xxvi. 1 — 10, to the exuberant harvest which was gathered 
into his barns. — " And I will dwell in the midst of thee," There 
is here a manifest allusion to the return of the divine Shekinah, 
which filled with its glory the holy of holies of the tabernacle 
and temple of Solomon, but was wanting in the second temple. 
The reign of Solomon and his temple, were faint shadows of the 
future reign of the Messiah, in which the Shekinah shall again 
glorify the holy city, the new Jerusalem, by the personal presence 
of the Lord Messiah; for it is written in the Revelation, that 



APPENDIX III. 



135 



the city " had no need of the sun^ neither of the moon to shine in it, 
for the glory of the Lord did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light 
thereof * 

The vision closes with the following words : " Be silent, O all 
flesh, before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his holy habita- 
tion'' There is here an allusion to the judgments, by which the 
Lord shall usher in the period of the second restoration, which 
are fully described in various parts of the prophetical writings, 
the effects whereof shall be, that the lofty looks of man shall be 
humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down ; and the 
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day : for the day of the Lord 
of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon 
every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low."-\ 

Having thus endeavoured to give a short view of the general 
meaning of the above vision of Zechariah, it may be proper for 
me to vindicate the principle of interpretation, whereby a double 
accomplishment has been assigned to it, first, in the restoration 
from Babylon, and, secondly, in the yet future and general re- 
demption of Judah and Israel from their present captivity. But 
instead of entering upon any arguments, to prove the legitimacy 
of this mode of interpretation, I shall content myself with refer- 
ring the reader to the 17th sermon of Bishop Horsley, in the 
second volume of his sermons, wherein there will be found an 
able illustration of this double or germinant accomplishment of 
sacred prophecy. I deem it proper, however, to add, that I agree 
with the learned Mr Faber in thinking, that it is only the un^ 
chronological prophecies to which this double accomplishment is 
attributable, while in the interpreting the chronological predic- 
tions of Daniel and St John, the opposite principle, of assigning 
to each vision a definite accomplishment in a single event, or 
series of events, must be scrupulously adhered to. 

It now only remains, that we should make a practical applica- 
tion of the foregoing sublime and interesting vision to our own 
circumstances. We ought, indeed, never to lose sight of the 
practical influence of the divine word of prophecy, which was 
edited by the Holy Ghost, not to gratify an idle curiosity, or to 
puff us up with a vain conceit of our spiritual wisdom, but that 
it might be a light shining upon our paths, to guide us in accom- 



Rev. xxi. 23. 



f Isaiah ii. 11, 12. 



136 



APPENDIX III. 



plishing the work of our own generation, or those peculiar duties 
to which the providence of God, interpreted by his prophetic 
word, does evidently call his own children in every distinct period 
of the world. It was thus, that holy Daniel was taught, by the 
diligent study of the prophecies of Jeremiah, that God would ac- 
complish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem, and he 
without delay set his face towards the Lord his God, " hy prayer 
and supplications y loith fasting^ and sackcloth^ and ashes/' * "jTor 
ihe holy mountain of his God.''\ In this illustrious man's con- 
duct, we see a conspicuous example of the legitimate use of the 
sure word of prophecy.'' Happy are we if^ like him, we be en- 
lightened by the same divine Spirit who dictated the words of the 
prophets, to read in the word of the Lord what are the peculiar 
duties to which we are called, upon whom " are come the ends of 
the world." ^ 

Unless I be greatly mistaken, the vision of Zechariah, to which 
the attention of your readers has been called in the foregoing re^ 
marks, has a direct reference to the period in which we live. 
All the later interpreters of prophecy, whatever be their differ- 
ences of opinion in other respects, seem to be unanimous in think- 
ing that we live in the time of the seventh apocalyptic trumpet 
and seven vials, and consequently at the very period when Zecha- 
riah, in the spirit of prophecy, was can'ied forward to see the 
four carpenters who came to cast out the four Gentile horns, pre- 
paratory to the final redemption of Judah and Israel. In the 
midst, however, of the awful scenes of judgment, which have in 
our days astonished and appalled the world, we at length hail the 
return of peace. § The attendant ministering spirits have per- 

* Dan. ix. 1, 2. f Ibid. 20. | 1 Cor. x. 11. 

§ This paper was written in the year 1817, and it is proper for me here to state, 
that my views with regard to this Vision of Zechariah remain unaltered. I 
still believe, that the peace, which, through the goodness of God succeeded the 
overthrow of the French Empire, and yet continues, is only a pause in those over- 
whelming judgments which shall usher in the Redemption of the Church, and 
glorious reign of the Messiah. Whether the present tranquillity of Europe re- 
sembles the quiet of sound health, or the intervals of the paroxysms of fever, let 
those judge who carefully observe the moral and political phenomena of our times. 
—Dec. 1821. 

/ now write on March 3d, 1835, with views quite unaltered as to the political 
and moral state of Europe. The peace has been much more durable than 1 expect- 
ed, hit the storm lohen it does breah out ivill he more terrific. 



APPENDIX III. 



137 



haps again, as in the days of Zechariah, " answered the angel of 
the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have 
walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sitteth 
still and is at rest" And perhaps even now, the Lord is saying, 
I am jealous for Jerusalem, and for Zion, with a great jealousy. 
And I am very sore displeased luith the heathen that are at ease : 
for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the afflic" 
tion. Therefore thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem 
with mercies : my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hostSy 
and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem'' 

Akeady the s^Yift messengers, from the land shadowing with 
wings, are going forth unto a people wonderful from their begin- 
ning hitherto, a nation expecting and trampled under foot, whose 
land rivers have spoiled.''^ In short, the signs of the times, all 
concur to show that the salvation of Israel is at the very door, 
and shall no longer tarry. 

From the consideration of this vision of Zechariah, let us gather 
new motives for persevering and unwearied exertion, in behalf of 
the ancient people of God. Let our faith become more steadfast 
in the unchangeable promise of the Lord, that He will arise 
and have mercy on Zion, for the time to favour her, yea, the set 
time is come ; for his servants take pleasure in her stones, and fa- 
vour the dust thereof''' There cannot be a rational ground of 
doubt, thst this promise has an express relation to the present 
eventful period, wherein we see the church of God awakening 
from the sleep of ages, clothing herself with her beautiful gar- 
ments, and putting on all her strength for the salvation of a lost 
world. Assuredly, if our faith in the promises of God be as a 
grain of mustard seed, even the mountain of Jewish infidelity 
shall remove at our word, and be turned into a plain before us. 

Let the consideration of this vision of Zechariah lead us, in 
the second place, to abound more and more in prayer and suppli- 
cation for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It was in this 
way that Daniel was stimulated, by the study of the prophecies 
of Jeremiah, to pour out the ardent desires of his heart in prayer 
and supplications for the salvation of his people. As the spiritual 
children of Abraham we are identified with his family, and it 
becomes us therefore to consider the following words of the pro- 

* See Bishop Korsley's Translation and Notes on the xviiith of Isaiah. 

S 



138 



APPENDIX III. 



pliet Ezekiel as addressed to ourselves : " Thus saith the Lord 
God ; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel to do 
it for them ; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the 
holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts, so shall 
the ivaste cities be filled with flocks of men, and they shall know 
thai I am the Lord." * 

Finally, let onr liberality in this blessed cause flow in a con- 
tinually increasing stream. Let us remember the case of Cor- 
nelius. It was said to him in vision by an angel of God, Thy 
prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. 
Let our pecuniary aid to the cause of God be commensurate to 
the extent of our means. Let us enlarge our hearts and open our 
hands, and God will bless us by giving us "of the dew of heaven 
and of the fatness of the earth, and 'plenty of corn and wine,^'' f in 
the best sense of these blessings, pouring out his Spirit upon us 
more abundantly, and causing us to be satisfied as with marrow _ 
and Avith fatness from the provisions of his house.:]: 



Ezek. xxxvi. 37, 38. f Gen. xxvii. 28, \ Psalm cxxxii. 15. 



139 



APPENDIX IV. 

A TABLE OF JUBILEE YEARS CONTINUED FROi^I TABLE 
m. TO THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1841. 



Number of each 
Jubilee* 


Years of 
Christ, 


1 

Number of each 
Jubilee. 


Years of 




77 


LY. Jubilee. 


lUUo 


W WIT 


1 OR 


T VT 
L. V 1. 


lUO / 


Y V YVTTT 
AAA V HI. 


no 


T ArTT 

L. V 11. 


1 1 Uo 


AAAIA. 


224 


LYIII. 


1 loo 


YT 

AL,. 


zJo 


T TV 


1 C>C\A 

lzU4 


YT T 




T V 

L. A. 


l20o 


YT TT 

AL.ll. 


o / 1 


T YT 
Li Al« 




"VT TTT 

AL,111. 


4zU 


T VTT 

L, All. 


ItjOl 


VT TX' 

ALl V . 




T YTTT 

L, Alll. 


1400 


XLV. 


518 


LXIY. 


1449 


XLYI. 


567 


LXY. 


1498 


XLVIL 


616 


LXYL 


1547 


XLvm. 


665 


LXVIL 


1596 


XLIX. 


714 


LXYIII. 


1645 


L. 


763 


LXIX. 


1694 


LL 


812 


LXX. 


1743 


LH. 


861 


LXXL 


1792 


LHL 


910 


LXXII. 


1841 


LIY. 


959 







ERRATA. 

Preface, p. iii, line 8, for xui^ou read x-^ovov. 

xviii, line 5 from bottom, /or Muhlburg read Muhlberg. 

xxvi, line 10, after B. c. 17. insert ( " ) double commas. 
Page 6, Note, line Q, for 1491 read 1451. 

5, /or 1491 read 1451. 

6, for 1491 read 1451. 
33^ line 23, for Ahab read Ahaz. 

40, line 4 from bottom, for ollows read follows. 

85, opposite B. c. 1367, /or 1st yi"- of Shemittah read Sabbatic year. 

87, line 5 of Authorities, /or xiv. 29. read xiv. 20. 

13 do. for xvi. 20. read xvi. 29. 

88; opposite Amon, in Authorities, insert 2 Kings. 



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